


"Ode to a Woodland Daughter"

by beetle



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Backstory, Dale - Freeform, Elves, Erebor, Eryn Lasgalen, F/M, Fourth Age, Future Fic, Greenwood, M/M, Mirkwood, Story within a Story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 20:54:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3223106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the Fourth Age. The lands are locked in a lasting peace. Bard II sits justly and well on the thrones of Dale and Laketown, as have his fathers before him. Yet the line of the Great Bowman is not without turmoil and strife. The heir-presumptive of Bard II, Sigrid, has run off to Erebor to marry Durin VII, son of Thorin-called-Stonehelm, son of Dain-called-Ironfoot. Sigrid’s older brother, Tild, has sworn off the throne, preferring to while away his days in revelry and drunkenness. Next in line for the throne is Sigrid’s cousin, half-elven Sildan—son of Girion, son of Brand, son of Bain, son of Bard-called-Dragonslayer—who is bereft: his cousin and one true love is marrying another and he, too, has a perfect horror of ruling. So what is this least and latest of the Great Bowman and Dragonslayer’s scions to do? Run away to the Greenwood, of course.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [badskippy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskippy/gifts).



> Notes/Warnings: Thanks to BadSkippy, for letting me brainstorm, and for coming up with a kickass title as well as making me dig deeper into my own fic. Thank you, my friend.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sildan Bowman, a prince of Dale and direct descendant of Bard the Dragonslayer, loses the person he loves most to another, and decides to make a drastic life-change.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: None. But thanks to BadSkippy for the invaluable help, brainstorming, and generous gift of a spiffy title.

_Dearest Sildan,_  
  
 _By the time you or anyone else reads this missive, I will have signed a marriage contract—I think you know with whom._  
  
 _I know that finding out this way will_ . _. ._ hurt _you, to say the least. And that is entirely my fault, for I am a coward, when it comes down to it, and as such, in my own way, as unfit to rule as Tild (who I imagine will be least _put-out _by my marriage, should he even care at all)._  
  
 _I would never have left you. Never, Sild_ . _. ._ but _I am in love. I understand, now, that feeling you write about in your songs and lays. I know what it is to no longer own my own heart. And now, I can do little else but follow _whither _that heart leads_ . _. . even if it leads away from the family . . ._ and _you._  
  
 _But know that I will always love you and miss you. I don’t imagine you’ll ever wish to see me again after the hurt I’ve dealt you. But see each other, I imagine we will, if only on state-visits. I ask only that you try to harbor as little hate for me in your heart as possible. That you forgive my fickle heart its greatest triumph and greatest failing._  
  
 _I’ve written a letter to father and mother, left—as you have no doubt found—in your care. To be delivered exactly one day after the finding of this letter. I ask for one day, that I may have that blissful idyll with my husband before our respective parents come down upon us like war-hammers. But if you choose to deliver the letter immediately_ . _. . I will understand, and not hold your decision against you._  
  
 _Be well, Sild . . ._ and _be happy. As well and happy as you may. And when the time is right, follow your heart, for astray, it may lead you, but it will never lead you wrong._  
  
 _With love,_  
Sig

 

 

*

  
  
Wiping his now-dry, but rubbed-raw eyes out of habit, Sildan shifts in his favorite hiding space—shown to him when he was wee by none other than Tild—of unused dumbwaiter. He’s been in the dumbwaiter since early morning, after taking Sig’s other’s letter to Uncle Bard and Aunt Ianthe.  
  
He can hear the echoes of their arguing with varying degrees of clarity from his spot in the dumbwaiter—Tild used to use the spot to eavesdrop before he fell into the bottom of a bottle and decided to never climb back out—as they alternate between absolving and blaming each other for Sig’s elopement.  
  
There, in the stuffy, musty darkness, knees tucked against his chest, he inhales a shaky, but shallow breath. Despite being small for one of Bard the Dragonslayer’s line—a slightness he supposes he inherited from his absent elven mother, whose name Sildan’s father will not even speak and which Sildan does not even know—the dumbwaiter is a tight fit for Sildan. But then, it was never meant to hold the form of a boy nearing manhood, no matter how small.  
  
He inhales, though it hurts simply to breathe, as if there are daggers piercing the shattered remains of his heart. He clutches the letter past his knobby knees, to his chest, and a few leftover tears escape his irritated eyes. In spite of the darkness, he can see perfectly well. Another thing that’s always marked him as different from his kin, and in which he’s never taken pride.  
  
“Oh, Sig,” he murmurs quietly, lest it carry to his aunt and uncle. He grits his teeth and leans his head back against the wall of the dumbwaiter, turning his eyes to the low ceiling of his safe-space. On it, he can see, as if through some magic, every moment of closeness he and Sig had shared from the time Sildan could toddle after her and Tild on their adventures throughout the ancient castle and city.  
  
Most particularly, he remembers the time he came closest to telling Sig that he loved her, when they were thirteen and sixteen, respectively.  
  
 _The sun is setting on the belltower of Dale, and their royal highnesses, Prince Sildan Bowman and Princess Sigrid Bowman lean in the tower’s west-facing window, watching the sky shade from fiery orange, to dreamy pink, to luscious purple._  
  
But more than the sunset, which he had seen a million times before, Sildan is taken up with the loveliness of his cousin. Tall and lean, built like a whippet, she stands in Harad-style tunic and breeches, similar to ones Aunt Ianthe’d had made for Sildan as a birthday present. Both of them also wear their bows and a quiver of arrows at their backs, as is the tradition of all Bard’s descendants, whether in peace-time or war—part of Bard’s tradition of being ever-vigilant. Though, in the case of this _royal pair, only one of them was ever any good with that hallmark of their line._  
  
(Not that this has ever bothered Sildan, any, though Tild still occasionally pokes fun at him for not being at least as good as Sigrid—who is, admittedly, surpassed only by Tild and Bard II in skill with the bow, but whose weapon of choice is the curved scimitar of her mother’s people.)  
  
But the last thing Sildan is worried about in this moment is his prowess with the family weapon . . . or lack thereof. No, he’s worried about something a good deal closer to his heart.  
  
“We’ll . . . we’ll always be together, won’t we, Sig?”  
  
Sigrid looks over at him, an absent, dreamy smile on her strong-featured face. She’s not pretty, not in the way the average girl of Dale or Laketown is pretty. She’s exotic, as is a hothouse flower, her skin a flawless nut-brown, her eyes the color of golden fall leaves, her wayward hair in piled on her head in fly-away curls and strands of ebony. Her almond-shaped eyes regard Sildan fondly, her full lips caught in that dreamy smile he will always love, and that makes him desire nothing so much as to kiss her breathless.  
  
“Of course, we will, Sild. After all,” the dreamy smile turns into Sig’s more customary puckish grin, the one that shows off her dimples. “A proper queen needs a talented jester to keep her amused.”  
  
“Berk.” Sildan laughs and elbows her in the side, prompting her to giggle and ruffle his unfashionably short auburn hair—at thirteen, he’s barely reached her shoulder in height, and it’s not so much that the women of Bard’s line are tall (though they are) but that he _is quite small—something he only tolerates from her. “You know what I mean, though. When we’re older, and . . . you’re on the throne, and I’m . . . sat around being the spare. You won’t marry me off to some well-born foreign girl for mineral rights, or some such bollocks?”_  
  
“Never!” Sig says, sounding offended. “If I plan to marry for love, then I could hardly expect you to do any differently. Unless the circumstances were dire. War or the like.”  
  
“Mm,” Sildan hums absently, himself. The idea of a war in this _Age is as unreal as it is terrifying. The elders’ and Aunt Ianthe’s tales of war aside—and the Haradrim could be absolutely_ bloodthirsty _—he simply cannot imagine anything coming along to threaten the peace that has begun to spread across Arda. Even to such mercenary peoples as the Haradrim. More of them enter into peace-talks with Gondor and Arnor every year._  
  
The world is changing, and for the better. More and more each day, and even Sildan, who has been accused of living too much inside his own head, to the detriment of everything else in his semi-charmed life, hasn’t failed to notice.  
  
“Besides,” Sig goes on, almost defiantly. “I don’t think it shall ever come to marriage for me, for I doubt I shall ever fall in love. Mam says I’m far too stubborn to give anyone else control over my heart and life. She says I get it from her _.” Sig snorts a little._  
  
“Yes, well, look at what happened _to_ her _. Her arranged marriage turned into a love-match because she lost her heart to Uncle Bard, anyway. It’s very romantic,” Sildan ventures, and Sig brushes a trailer of ebony hair out of her face whilst making a rude noise._  
  
“If you want to call that _romantic. They butt heads like two dwarves trying to hammer out a contract over mithril rights!”_  
  
“True,” Sildan concedes. But grins up at Sig, who scowls. “But anyone can see how much they love each other beneath it. The fact is, if they didn’t care deeply about what the other thought, they wouldn’t bother _to argue with each other.”_  
  
“Such words of wisdom from one so young.” Sig lightly punches his shoulder and Sildan blushes, turning his face to the sunset in the hopes that its light will paint his face too orange for that blush to show up.  
  
“Well. Am I wrong?”  
  
“No.” Sig sighes heavily, and leans gracefully out over the city, closing her eyes and inhaling deeply. Then she ducks back into the tower, her eyes glittering almost grimly as she stares down at the city that would one day be hers. “But I want love on my own terms, not on my parents’ terms. Their marriage works for them, but I’m not overly certain it would work for me.”  
  
“Ah. You want a love like those silly novels you read, eh?” Usually needling Sig about her choices of reading materials is a quick way to get a blush and a nervous giggle. But this time, Sig merely sighs again.  
  
“No, I want a love like the ones in those silly songs you write.” Sig smiles over at SIldan, a bit sadly. “But how often does one find that outside of the great songs and epics? I imagine most people are just lucky they can find someone who won’t eventually poison their soup or kill them in their sleep.”  
  
“Spoken like a true romantic.” SIldan rolls his eyes.  
  
“You’re _the romantic of the family. I’m the sensible one. And Tild is—”_  
  
“The one who’s always drunk off his arse?”  
  
“You said it, not me.”  
  
“Tild _says it, all the time.” Sildan sniffs. He’s never touched a drop in his life and doesn’t plan to. He appreciates every one of his faculties as they are, without the dubious aid of liquid courage-cum-inspiration._  
  
And speaking of inspiration. . . .  
  
“Say, Sig—er, Sigrid _?”_  
  
“Yes, Sildan _?” A mock-serious tone that matches SIldan’s earnestly-serious one. He blushes again, and leans out over the city, himself, for a moment pretending he’s a great Eagle, like the ones from the stories of Thorin Oakenshield and his company, and the War of the Ring._  
  
“Would you . . . would you want to hear a song that I wrote yesterday? I mean, it’s nothing special, and I haven’t worked out all the chord changes precisely—and the lyrics aren’t exactly as I’d have them, yet, but—”  
  
“Sildan.” Sig laughs, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and turning them both away from the city. “You must _learn to talk yourself up proper! Every song is an opus, every poem a work that will shine for an Age!”_  
  
“Forgive me for not being as boastful as all that,” Sildan huffs, feeling as if he’s being made fun of. But then Sig pulls him close and kisses his cheek.  
  
“I simply meant that if you _don’t believe in yourself and your skills, no one_ else _will!”_  
  
Sildan mumbles something to the effect of: Easy for you to say. You’re so bloody  _good_  at everything. _Sig laughs again._  
  
“I’m only good at things because I’ve never had cause to think I wouldn’t be. Nor have you _had cause to think your songs and poems and stories are anything but amazing. Everyone tells you how good you are. Even that barbarian, King Durin.” Now Sig is the one to sniff, and ever so disapprovingly. She’s not liked King Durin VII since a state visit when she was seven, during which he’d pulled one of her pigtails and called her “a spirited, wee sprite.” Sigrid being Sigrid, even at seven, she’d sweetly called him the diseased offspring of a barrow-boar and a back-alley cur, in a dialect of Harad that, apparently, King Durin was familiar with. For he’d smoothly replied in that same dialect that with a mouth like that, she’d have hard luck catching a husband who would put up with her._  
  
Kings Bard and Durin had been quite amused at Sig’s utter shock and chagrin. Queen Ianthe had been mortified. And Sig has never lived down the episode, even almost ten years later. She still makes a point of being absent during King Durin’s state-visits unless she absolutely must _be there._  
  
Sildan finds him to be quite a jovial and canny fellow, all told.  
  
“I suppose beautiful music soothes even the savage breast,” Sig says thoughtfully, as they start down the tower stairs. “And you, my dear cousin, do make quite _beautiful music.”_  
  
“Never as beautiful as when you accompany me.” Sildan’s voice is so soft as he says this, that he’s certain Sig doesn’t hear him. But hear, she does.  
  
“I squawk like a dying crow that’s just got kicked in the nethers, and we both know it! But somehow, I never sound as bad when singing something you’ve _written. Really, it’s as if you write these songs of yours just for me.” Sig giggles and SIldan flushes, because that’s exactly what he’s been doing since he composed his very first sonnet._  
  
Every song, every lay, every bit of doggerel that he’s written has been either about Sig, for Sig, or extolling the virtues of loving Sig. And in that moment, it wells up in him to tell her, finally, of the love he’s born for her since as far back as he can remember. To tell her that if she will never marry, then neither will her, for he can imagine a life with no one but her. That even if the worst were to happen, and he was forced to marry for some political or diplomatic expedient, she would still ever bear his heart within her.  
  
He opens his mouth to let out some inkling of this great feeling that’s been, at turns, the joy and bane of his brief existence . . . and out comes. . . .  
  
A hiccough.  
  
Then a belch.  
  
And finally a sound like: “Gruh,” and another hiccough.  
  
Sig blinks over at him, then laughs till she’s snorting and giggling again, her face flushing deeply enough that it shows up even on her complexion. “Oh, Sild, never change—promise me you won’t? Ever?”  
  
“But, Sig, what on Arda would I change into _?” Sildan bleats, around hiccoughs._  
  
And then Sildan is, aside from hiccoughing, laughing and giggling, too. Not because he finds himself remotely amusing, but because he can’t be near a laughing Sigrid for long without laughing, himself.  
  
Arms around each other, and hailed by most people they cross paths with, the pair makes their way back to the castle, and the kitchens, first, for a few draughts of cold water, to cure Sildan’s unfortunate hiccoughs. Then to the family wing and Sildan’s rooms, where waits a plethora of musical instruments, sheets of paper with musical notation, and journals upon journals of writing.  
  
Once he’s made his audience comfortable, Sildan selects his lute and beings to play and sing.  
  
Neither royal notices when supper-time comes and goes without them. . . .  
  
And although, in time, it became obvious to Sildan that Sig had realized how deeply for her his feelings ran, he’d never been brave enough to tell her, and now. . . .

  
_Now, she’s run off with that son of a diseased barrow-boar and back-alley cur, and I’m sat here alone, and destined to remain that way,_  Sildan thinks, crushing the letter to himself as if it’s Sig’s heart, and he has the power to wound it as deeply as his own has been.  _Why didn’t I ever say something when I had the chance? Why wasn’t I born braver, smarter, better—more like Durin-the-bloody-seventh, since that’s what she wants? Why is it that everyone I love leaves me? First my mother . . . Da, as often as he can get away . . . and now Sig. The only person who ever believed in me, and so much that I started—unwisely, it turns out—to believe in_ myself.  
  
 _Why does everyone leave me? What’s so terrible about me that no one ever wants to_ stay?  
  
More tears—will he  _never_  run out?—well up in his eyes and he sniffles. His aunt and uncle have finally stopped fighting, and all Sildan can hear is his Aunt Ianthe’s soft sobs, and his Uncle Bard’s gruff, but gentle voice consoling her.  
  
 _I will never have that,_  he realizes bleakly.  _Never have someone to comfort and be comforted by. Never have a wife and children. Never have a soft place to fall, if fall I do. That’s not fair! What have I done to deserve being left so bereft? What will I do, now that my one purpose in life has been taken away?_  
  
Sildan receives no answer, from within or without. For hours, he sits there in his dumbwaiter, at last thinking nothing at all, ignoring even the threnody of his own broken heart, till the sounds of sobbing and consolation have faded, and the evening bells have long-since rung.  
  
It is only after the night watch has halved its shift, and breakfast is a closer eventuality than dinner, that he at last wedges himself out of dumbwaiter and makes his way to his rooms. After many years of doing so—and a certain knack for not being noticed when he doesn’t want to—he gets there without being seen by the night staff, nor even hailed by the guard.  
  
Once he’s shut and locked the world out, he stands in the cluttered mess of his receiving room (which is where he keeps all his instruments, including the pianoforte sent as a gift from Gondor, and for which no one but Sildan had seen a use), the gittern, the many flutes and pipes—wooden and metallic—the tabor, the small set of Harad hand-drums, the horn, and dozens of other instruments, and stares at the tools of his chosen trade as if at an alien landscape.  
  
None of it makes sense to him—not anymore. It all seems so pointless without a Muse to guide it. The instruments, the music, the journals . . . what point any of it, if not Sig? How could he ever write or compose again when his heart, that once powerful engine, is naught but ashes in his chest?  
  
He turns in a circle, emotionlessly examining everything his eye falls on, and slowly realizing that none of it matters to him. He no longer needs these instruments of expression because there’s nothing left in him to express but deep, bitter regret and loneliness. Even the well-spring of his inspiration, which had, just two days ago, seemed endless, is completely dry, now.  
  
The instruments and accoutrements are the tools of a person who is dead. They are unnecessary reminders of a pain the person standing in his stead suspects he will always feel as keenly as he does in these natal moments.  
  
So, that person starts with a small wooden flute, given as a gift years ago.  
  
By sunrise, most of those instruments feed the roaring fire in Sildan’s fireplace. The sheet music and journals had gone with moonset.  
  
As for the boy who once owned them, he, too, is gone by the time the morning bells ring; dead of the crucible of his own heart-break. Morning sees a man born: one with nothing to live for and no memories onto which he wants to hold—nothing in him but the instinct to get away from his past, and his future. To find a quiet place where no one knows the person he once was and will therefore have no expectations of him.  
  
He needs to go someplace where, for once, he won’t stand out—just be another (pointy-eared) face in the crowd.

 

 

*

  
  
Jittney Rolla clucks to his mules as they slowly pull his cart down the Great Road.  
  
He doesn’t know why, after all these years, he bothers. They never move any faster and he never has the heart to whip them. So, whither they go, they go slowly.  
  
Yet still not as slowly as the cloaked and cowled stranger trudging along the roadside with hunched shoulders, yet kicking up no dust as he drags his booted feet.  
  
Rolla watches the stranger as he draws even with him. He can’t make out any features, the stranger has his hood pulled down so far over his face and his head hanging, besides. But when he reaches up to rub his nose with one dusty hand, the gesture is graceful. So graceful, that Rolla thinks he’s mistaken a lass for a lad.  
  
“Hullo, there . . . need a ride?” Rolla calls out of habit, despite still being uncertain as to the gender of this cloaked and cowled stranger. Though it matters not in the end whether it be lad or lass; company’s company, all the same.  
  
The stranger pauses for a moment, but then resumes walking. “How far down this road do you travel, sir?” a low, pleasantly deep baritone emerges from the cowl, and the stranger’s head—which barely clears the  _mules’_  hanging heads, and they’re  _short_  for mules—turns slightly, allowing Rolla a glimpse of a pointed chin and bow-shaped mouth, the lower lip of which is held hostage between perfect white teeth. Rolla scratches his head while he shakes it, bemused.  
  
“Wella, I travel as far as the Greenwood, young man, where I do a bit of trading with the woodland elves. Then my road brings me right back to Erebor and Dale.”  
  
At the word  _Greenwood_ , the young man pauses again, for long enough that Rolla brings the wagon to a halt. When next he looks at the young man, it’s to see, staring up at him, a pale—somewhere under all the soot and dust it’s covered in—oval of a face, too pretty and fine-featured to be handsome, but weary, too, if the strain that shines out of moss-green eyes is to be believed.  
  
After a few moments of taking each other’s measure, the young man bows low.  
  
“I would be very grateful for a lift as far as you’re willing to take me, sir,” the young man says humbly. “I can also offer remuneration for—”  
  
“You’ll pay me back by listening to my stories and telling me yours,” Rolla interrupts, laughing and waving the blinking, surprised boy aboard his wagon.  
  
After a moment of hesitation, he boy springs aboard as nimbly as a frog, settling on the bench next to Rolla, who quickly makes room. The lad is like the shadow of a dagger: long, lean, barely there. Unlike most young lads, there’s an air of stillness about this one, rather than rambunctiousness just barely held in check. Rolla is intrigued.  
  
Once introductions have been made—“Taleteller” the boy introduces himself as . . .  _quite memorable as aliases go_ , Rolla thinks, amused—and the mules are moving again, Rolla and the boy fall into a comfortable silence for a few miles, till Rolla, ready for some of his remuneration, breaks it.  
  
“So, what’s awaiting you in the Greenwood? Friends? Business? Adventure?”  
  
The boy glances at him sideways, his wide green eyes startled and shining with more than alertness and morning sun, and looks away again, very quickly.  
  
“A new start,” is all he says. And that silence falls again. This time, it’s distinctly uncomfortable. So Rolla fills it up once more with talk and tales.  
  
The boy’s a good listener and, after the first few hours, even tells a few tales of his own in that pleasant, lulling voice of his. Cracking  _good_  tales, too, that even Rolla has, in his seventy-one years, never heard. By the time they stop for the evening, Rolla’s bemusement has passed, to be replaced by an almost fondness for his new travelling companion, who has, Rolla’s noted, a hunger for tales of the Greenwood. So Rolla tells him what tales he knows. Old tales, of Eryn Lasgalen; newer tales, of the Mirkwood, and its spiders and tricksy trails; and finally of the Greenwood, and its reclusive elves.  
  
Some of what Rolla tells is rumor, some of it fact, all of it fantastic.  
  
“It sounds like a fair and wondrous place,” the boy, Taleteller, says longingly, poking desultorily at the fire with a yardstick. Rolla chuckles.  
  
“’Tis indeed fair and wondrous. But perilous, in some ways. I, myself, keep only to the edges of the Greenwood, unless invited and escorted further in by the elves.”  
  
“A-And what are  _th-they_  like?” The boy’s eyes, made eldritch-green by the fire, tick to Rolla’s, tears standing out in them that he quickly blinks away. Rolla’s eyebrows drift gently to his nonexistent hairline.  
  
“Oh, fair, and wondrous. But perilous, in some ways.” He nods, and the boy holds his peace for the rest of the night, till they turn in. He’s soon asleep, in that enviable way of the very young and very tired, leaving Rolla awake for a while longer, whilst puzzling out his companion.  
  
Placing the boy’s age is a job of work—he’s small for his years, Rolla senses, but his too-pretty face is still very young. Fifteen, perhaps. Maybe sixteen. His voice belies both his age and size, however. It’s the voice of a natural-born story-teller—or even a singer, profound and rich.  
  
His clothes, though dusty and sooty are well-made of fine, deeply-dyed wool and the money-pouch the boy wears—in plain sight, were he not so dourly cloaked—is clearly full.  
  
He’s a cypher, is young master Taleteller. But Rolla reckons that’s none of his concern until and unless it  _becomes_  his concern.  
  
And in the meantime, it’s over a week’s trip to the Greenwood, at the pace his mules have set. More than enough time to, if Rolla is of a mind, tease a bit of the boy’s true story from him.  
  
He has a feeling that once the boy thaws, “Taleteller” will more than live up to his assumed name. . . .

 

 

TBC


	2. "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sildan and Mr. Rolla make their way to the Greenwood. But there's trouble in their road. . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: Thanks to BadSkippy, for letting me brainstorm, and for coming up with a kickass title as well as making me dig deeper into my own fic. Thank you, my friend.

“If I may ask,” Sildan begins, hastening to help the old peddler up into his wagon, but Mr. Rolla waves him off and, with many a creak and pop, makes his way up into the wagon’s seat. He then slides along it with a grunt to make room for Sildan, who scrambles aboard with alacrity. “What is it that you peddle to the elves of the Greenwood, Mr. Rolla?”  
  
“Oh,” Mr. Rolla exhales gustily, obviously trying to catch his breath from his climb into the wagon. He wipes his soil-dark face with a clean handkerchief that he then shoves back into the breast pocket of his jerkin. “This and that, my lad, this and that. Mostly seeds and samples and the like, from far off places. Have a taste for exotic flora, do the elves of the Greenwood, heh.”  
  
The old man laughs just a tad wheezily and Sildan frowns. It is barely Spring, yet, but an early and warm one. Notoriously the kind of weather in which the elderly and infirm develope illnesses that have a nasty habit of sometimes killing them.  
  
After nearly three days of sharing a road and company with Mr. Rolla, the thought of the old character falling ill, perhaps to his end, is . . . unpleasant. Sildan has a moment of wishing for his Aunt Ianthe—the closest thing to a mother he’s ever had, and a dab hand with herbal lore and healing (a talent which none of her children had inherited, she was known to frequently lament). She’d know for certain what preventative measures Mr. Rolla would need to take to avoid such an illness.  
  
As it stands, the old man comports himself as if he’s one-third the age he actually is, pushing himself and his ornery mules till it grows too dark to see well, and then staying up late to regale Sildan with stories of his actual youth and the dangerous times he’d lived through. Of course, he then would wake up with the figurative crowing of the cock to push on toward the Greenwood. And he  _insists_  on cooking their meals. A blessing about which Sildan feels guilty—for the old man is a wonderful cook, and doesn’t stint on servings, saying only that: “A growing boy needs to  _eat_  like one”—and grateful at turns. For he, himself, is a  _terrible_  cook, managing to burn absolutely _everything_ , up to and including water. Why, Sig, a dab-hand at cooking, herself, had always said of Sildan—  
  
—and there that thought gets cut off at the knees. Sildan forces his mind down another trail, one more relevant to the situation he’s in.  
  
“Why don’t the elves just travel and get the things they need for themselves?” he wonders aloud, and Mr. Rolla huffs.  
  
“Because they’d like an old man to keep his livelihood, that’s why!” Another wheezy laugh, and Mr. Rolla clucks to his snorting, sleepy mules. “In truth, the elves of the Greenwood have always kept themselves to themselves, preferring the bounds of their forestlands, to the wide world. Peddlers, such as I, do a brisk business in the fanciful and exotic, and in news and gossip of the wider world, as well.”  
  
“Hmm.” Sildan watches his breath plume white out in front of him. Early spring, yes, and warm. But not until the sun’s had a chance to do its business properly. Hunching a bit under the cloak he’d taken from Tild’s rooms—warm, it was, and of plain make: simple, dark wool without any silly chevrons or insignias or coats of arms—Sildan looked up at the pale sky, then at the horizon, which was a green line that Mr. Rolla had told him yesterday was the first of the Greenwood. “Do they at least deal fairly with you?”  
  
Mr. Rolla snorts. “My boy, you’ve never dealt with elves, I can tell. Especially the elves of the Greenwood. They always deal fairly—more than—with traders and peddlers. Especially the ones who’ve formed a relationship with them over the long years. Which aren’t really that long to them that’s immortal.”  
  
“Are they . . . are they anything like the Dwarves?” Sildan asks tentatively. Mr. Rolla cackles wildly, till he begins to cough.  
  
“Oh, my, no!” Out comes the handkerchief, and Mr. Rolla laughs and coughs into it till he’s composed himself once more. “Don’t take me wrong, lad, the dwarves are a fine lot, and generous to them as have won their respect and allegiance. No greater allies in a fight, dwarves. No one better to have on your side in a scuffle. But elves are a different story, altogether. They’re more . . . rather, less . . . well, it’s hard to rightly explain. . . . “ Mr. Rolla sighs then casts a sideways glance at Sildan, smiling. “If you’re still with me when I reach the Greenwood, you’ll see for yourself, lad. The elves don’t, unlike the dwarves, wear their passions on their sleeve, which leads some to doubt they even have them. But I know different. The more reserved the elf, the more powerfully he or she feels about—something. Or everything.”  
  
Sildan thinks that over, and wonders, not for the first time, if his mother had felt any love for him, or for his father. Girion had been, it’s rumored, a gregarious and lovable young man, before the elven maiden—an elven maiden of the Greenwood, some say—stole his heart. After her abandonment of Girion, he’d . . . changed. Become grim and somber. Cautious and sad. And even the child left—without any witnesses, despite the many guards and servants around the castle and city—on the doorstep of Girion’s personal quarters had done nothing to leaven that somberness and sadness. Indeed, the arrival of the child, who looked nothing like his father, and apparently everything like the elven maiden few had even seen, seemed only to bring Girion more pain and consternation. To the point that he was and is almost never in Dale, if he can help it. Always off in Laketown or, more often, traveling to the lands of the South, setting up trade agreements with peoples that most Dalemen would never see or meet.  
  
Sildan could, at the end of the day, pick his father out of a crowd of men (but mostly because as a small child, he’d spent so many hours staring at the portraits in the Royal Family Gallery, and wondering why his mum wasn’t among them).  
  
And that’s still more than he could say for his mother.  
  
 _Clearly she wanted nothing to do with me, or the line of Bard the Dragonslayer,_  Sildan thinks as Mr. Rolla launches into another of his stories.  _If, indeed, she was a maiden of the Greenwood, and still resides there, it could be extremely awkward for me to turn up on King Thranduil’s doorstep, asking for succor. Though that’s assuming rather a lot. For starters, that he’ll take in a half-breed bastard with no necessary skills, such as hunting or fighting, and whose only remaining talent is rehashing ancient stories, songs, and poems that a bunch of immortals have no doubt heard thousands of times already.  
  
What am I _doing?  
  
 _And what will I do if the elves of the Greenwood turn me away?_  
  
The only answer he receives, as he had since the first time he’d asked himself that question several days ago, when choosing a direction by which to leave the city, is:  _They won’t. They_ can’t _. You’re one of them, even if you_ are _half-mortal. You have elven blood in your veins. The proof of it is plain to anyone who sees your bloody ridiculous ears._  
  
Snorting softly to himself, Sildan pulls his cowl closer and further down around his face. He has yet to push it back in front of Mr. Rolla. Not because he distrusts the old man, but because he has managed, thus far, to avoid talking about his reasons for seeking out the Greenwood. He means to avoid that for as long as possible,  _if_  possible.  
  
Anything that would keep him from having to explain not just why he’s going to Greenwood, but why he left Dale.  
  


*

  
  
They’re but two days slow ride—or one day’s fast ride—from the dense line of green that marks the Greenwood, or so Mr. Rolla says, when they notice the thick, seemingly endless smoke rising from the north and east of their camping spot.  
  
Their own travels had been taking them steadily north and east, up to that point.  
  
“What do you suppose  _that_  is?” Sildan asks, his mouth half-full of a bacon and egg sandwich. Mr. Rolla has been staring at the smoke for some minutes, his own breakfast untouched.  
  
“Trouble,” the older man says grimly, squinting into the pale pink sky ahead. Above them, however, the sky is still a pale purple-grey. “And in our road.”  
  
“Maybe . . . maybe there was a fire and someone needs help,” Sildan offers hesitantly, swallowing his mouthful of sandwich. Mr. Rolla glances at him.  
  
“Could be, lad. There’s been talk among the other peddlers of groups of bandits springing up near the Greenwood.” He  _hmms_  and turns back to the smoke. “The bandits take what they value, then burn the wagons, leaving the peddlers stranded . . . sometimes wounded or dead.”  
  
Going cold all over, Sildan is suddenly less hungry than he was mere seconds ago. “ _Dead_?” Swallowing, SIldan glances down at his sandwich, then back up at the sky ahead. Dawn is coming on fast. “Um . . . do you suppose the bandits are . . . are still nearby?”  
  
“There’s no way to know, lad,” Mr. Rolla says thoughtfully, stroking his white-tufted chin. “But from what I’ve heard, they rarely stay around once they’ve got what they came for. They disappear into the hills to the east of the Greenwood with their ill-gotten gains.”  
  
“If they’re operating so close to the Greenwood, and stealing from and harming the peddlers who bring things into his kingdom, why doesn’t King Thranduil do something to stop them?” Sildan asks, perplexed. For Uncle Bard would  _never_  let brigands go unpunished so close to his own lands. Neither would King Durin. “He could probably lay waste to the whole lot of them with a small squad of elves in but a fortnight.”  
  
“Probably,” Mr. Rolla agrees, sighing. “But the thieves are careful not to set foot in the Greenwood. Not so much as an inch. And it is well known that King Thranduil will not police the land outside the borders of his kingdom. Once upon a time, he did, but in recent years, he has withdrawn. He hasn’t been to visit either Dale or Erebor in nearly a century. And it’s been nearly that long since word has come of him leaving the Greenwood. And his emissaries are few and far between, only sent out for matters of great and dire importance. The happenings of the other races beyond his doorstep rarely concern him.”  
  
Sildan frowns. “But this is happening to peddlers and merchants who have  _dealings with his people_! Peddlers and merchants who would not even be in harm’s way  _but_  for their dealings with the elves of the Greenwood!”  
  
Mr. Rolla shrugs wearily. “It’s a risk we take, traveling the long road between the Greenwood and our respective lands.”  
  
“But as king, he should be taking steps to  _lessen_  that risk!” Angry, now, at these elves and their isolationist king, Sildan takes another angry bite of his sandwich. “His first care should be his own people, yes, but he should also have a care for his neighbors!”  
  
“What a king  _should_  do and what a king  _will_  do sometimes do not coincide, my boy. It’s a sad fact of royalty that their whims, be they for good or ill, rule us,” Mr. Rolla says gently, turning away from the smoke in the distance and the sunrise behind it. He watches SIldan wolf down his sandwich with hungry, angry bites and chuckles, offering Sildan his own sandwich, when Sildan’s is done.  
  
Sildan takes the still-warm sandwich gratefully, then feels guilty, blinking up at Mr. Rolla. “But what about you?”  
  
“Ah, you go on, lad. I’m not hungry, this morning,” Mr. Rolla says, chuckling again. “Leastaways, not as hungry as  _you_.”  
  
“Sorry,” Sildan apologizes, turning beet-red even as he eyes the sandwich with clear intent. “I’m always hungry. Dunno why.”  
  
“Because you’re a growing boy. I reckon you’ve still got an inch or two left before you’re done. You’ll never be  _tall_ , but you’ll be tall _er_  than you are now.” Mr. Rolla winks and Sildan smiles.  
  
“I’d be glad of even an inch or two more. I’ll still be the shortest person in my family, but—” Sildan falls silent, and takes a bite of his sandwich. He’d been about to say that it didn’t matter anymore, since he’d never be seeing any of them again. But even saying that seems like saying too much.  _Giving away_  too much. Even to a man as kind and trustworthy as Mr. Rolla.  
  
Sildan glances away from the canny look in Mr. Rolla’s eyes. “Anyway, I’ll be glad of another inch or two.”  
  
“I’m sure you will,” Mr. Rolla says, standing and stretching. “In the meantime, you can finish that on the go. I mean to get to those poor, stranded peddlers by moonrise.”  
  
Sildan’s eyes widen and he nearly drops his sandwich. “You mean to help them?”  
  
“If I can.”  
  
“B-but what if . . . what if there’re still bandits about?”  
  
Mr. Rolla grins and climbs the first two steps up to the wagon’s front seat with a grunt. He reaches into the open door of the enclosed section and rummages around for a bit, before coming out with a shortsword that gleams and sparkles in the sun.  
  
Sildan’s mouth drops open as Mr. Rolla swings the sword in a brief arc. Its make is unfamiliar—not of Dale or Erebor, or even of Gondor—and inscribed up and down the hilt are characters that look like writing. Graceful, strange writing. . . .  
  
“It’s of elven make,” Mr. Rolla says, stepping gingerly off the wagon and approaching Sildan, who puts down his sandwich to take the sword when it’s offered, hilt-first.  
  
It’s heavy and cool in his hand, and the hilt has the same strange writing—some dialect of elvish, Sildan supposes—and is also inlaid with small white and green gems.  
  
“Where . . . where did you get this?” falls from Sildan’s lips as he admires the blade. Mr. Rolla watches him with a smile.  
  
“It’s been passed down from father to son in my family for generations. It saved my ancestor’s life in the Battle of the Five Armies. A Laketown fisherman, he was, and he’d been wounded in the battle. Wounded so badly that he fell . . . on top of the body of another who’d fallen, and lost his life. An elf. My ancestor took up the fallen elf’s sword and slew the orc that had been harrying him. And a few other orcs, besides,” Mr. Rolla snorts. “After the battle was over, my ancestor tried to return the blade to King Thranduil’s lieutenant, but the lieutenant looked at the writing on the hilt, and bid him keep it, saying only that its former bearer had no kin to pass  _The Blood-Letter_ on to.”  
  
“That’s—amazing. And sad,” Sildan says, reluctantly handing the blade back to Mr. Rolla, who turns to put it back in the wagon. “ _The Blood-Letter_  . . . can you—I mean, do you know how to use it?”  
  
“Aye. Before I was a peddler, I was a guardsman in Dale—oh, this was ages ago, when I was young!” Mr. Rolla laughs. Sildan, meanwhile, sighs in relief. For a moment, he’d been certain his pretense at being merely a random traveler had all been for naught. But no. He’s far too young for Mr. Rolla to recognize. And even if he isn’t, as a peddler, the other man spends precious little time in the city of his birth.  
  
Taking up his sandwich again, Sildan sighs. He feels terrible lying, even if it’s only by omission, to someone who’s been so kind to him. But there’s nothing else for it. If word were to get back to Uncle Bard and Aunt Ianthe, he’d shortly find himself dragged back to Dale, beyond all doubt.  
  
“Well!” Mr. Rolla says, slowly climbing off the wagon and approaching his two ornery mules with hands on hips. “Let’s get these beasts harnessed in and we can be on our way.”  
  
“Yes, sir,” SIldan says, putting his sandwich down  _again_  and jumping up to help the old peddler. As he gets to the wagon and the mule to the right, he glances at the horizon again to see the sun peeking over it like a blood-red eye. He shudders and looks away.  
  
“A red sun rises,” he murmurs to himself, and Mr. Rolla grunts, patting the mule on the right’s flank.  
  
“Aye, lad. Blood was spilled last night. Or so the elves would say,” he replies, sounding troubled. “All the more reason for us to make haste. Someone may be dying, out there.”  
  
“Yes, sir.” Sildan begins harnessing the mules just as Mr. Rolla had shown him, every so often sneaking glances at the pink-orange-red sky in the distance.  
  
Against the backdrop of the brightening horizon, smoke continues to billow and unfurl like a prolonged cry for help.  
  
Or a sign of warning.  
  


*

  
  
They ride long and hard, that day. Mr. Rolla even takes out and cracks his long-unused whip in the air to spur the mules on. To Sildan’s surprise, the animals  _do_  move quite a bit faster under Mr. Rolla’s threats of whipping. Ornery, they may be, but they’re certainly not stupid.  
  
The billows of smoke in their road get closer even as they diminish slightly, then more dramatically. But not before Sildan picks up the scent of the smoke: burning wood and cloth, and . . . charred meat.  
  
It makes him shudder and breathe through his mouth thereafter.  
  
“There is a fell scent on the air, Mr. Rolla,” he says reluctantly, and the old man clucks at his mules, urging them on.  
  
“Fell, indeed. My old nose cannot smell it, whatever it is. I cannot smell the smoke at all, yet.” Mr. Rolla casts a sideways glance at Sildan, who blushes and looks away.  
  
“I s-suppose a good sense of smell must r-run in my family,” he says lamely. Mr. Rolla  _hmms_ , and turns his eyes back to the road ahead.  
  
“What exactly do you smell, lad?”  
  
Sildan hesitates for a few moments, then, with a sigh, answers. “Burning wood, of course, but mingled with that, a smell like . . . like burning flesh.”  
  
“A pyre,” Mr. Rolla says immediately, nodding. “Blood has indeed been spilled this past night, if there’s a pyre. We needs must move a little quicker, lad, in case the survivors need aid.”  
  
And with that, Mr. Rolla cracks his whip again, twice, and the mules snort and grumble . . . but move a bit faster.  
  


*

  
  
It is nearing moonrise when they reach the remains of the small caravan of wagons, which had clearly been ambushed near a small copse of trees lining either side of the road. In the near distance, the line of green that is the Greenwood, stands tall and mysterious. Almost forbidding.  
  
Nearer at hand, however, there are three, formerly high piles of wood and possessions, still burning and smoking slightly, and no signs of anyone nearby.  
  
After pushing a hard pace all day, Mr. Rolla finally slows his tired mules, about one hundred yards away from the trees and the three burning piles.  
  
“ _Halloo_!” he calls out, and a frisson works its way through Sildan, who suddenly wants nothing more than to spur the mules on to ride past the copses at top speed, skirting the three piles as best they can, and without stopping until they reach the safety of the Greenwood. He has, with no reasoning behind it, quite a bad feeling about this situation, and it goes beyond the expected wariness of a site of recent foul-play.  
  
“Perhaps we shouldn’t call out, so,” Sildan whispers, his eyes ticking from the detritus in their road, to the dense copses of trees looming like enemy sentinels to either side of their road. “It looks as if everyone’s moved on.”  
  
“It looks that way, aye, but there may be survivors hiding in yon tangle.” Mr. Rolla gestures to the trees, which seem to be coming on far too fast for Sildan’s liking. “They may be scared to reveal themselves, and with good reason.  _Halloo, wagons!_ ”  
  
Shuddering, Sildan keeps watch on the trees. Not a leaf stirs.  
  
When they’re within mere yards of the copses, and still no sign of life disturbs the bright evening, Mr. Rolla stops calling, seeming to have caught Sildan’s wariness and unease.  
  
The mules step carefully around the first pile of burnt wagon and possessions, snorting and uneasy, themselves. Sildan glances down at the smoking pile, and sees wood mostly, but also clothing, books, a child’s wooden doll, singed and still smoking, and . . . a human hand, near the very bottom of the pile, black and red from fire.  
  
“M-Mr. Rolla,” Sildan stammers softly, fighting nausea and fright. He points at the hand, where it lays at the bottom of the fired possessions, and Mr. Rolla gasps, then nods, cracking his whip, urging the mules on again.  
  
“ _Oy-ya! Oy-ya!_ ” he clucks, leaning forward with the reins. Just as he does, Sildan feels a burst of knowing and fright that has him reaching behind him into the wagon for Mr. Rolla’s sword. In those awful moments, he understands what’s happened—what ploy has been worked on them, and how, because of good intentions, they’ve now found themselves in the same position as the last peddlers to come this way.  
  
Sildan understands all this and, from the trees to either side of the wagon, all hell breaks loose.  
  


*

  
  
Laughter . . . rough and cruel.  
  
Sildan opens his blurry eyes even as he takes a breath that hurts more than anything in his life ever has.  
  
In the bright darkness, he can see the sky and the moon, bright and full and, far closer, trees looming above, stark, screaming shadows in the darkness.  
  
He tries to stir, and finds he can barely move. A groan of agony escapes him, low as a whimper, and another burst of laughter sounds from his right.  
  
Turning his head at a glacially slow pace toward the laughter, Sildan takes slow stock of himself. His legs seem to be fine, and he can move them without pain. His right arm—at the shoulders—seems to be another story, as does his left. Both cause him agony in his chest that sharpens his vision and clears his head—though moving his left arm makes the agony worse by tenfold.  
  
Tears leak out of Sildan’s eyes as he slowly angles his head to the right. As he blinks away blurriness, he can just make out two arrows protruding from his chest, one high on the left side, the other low in his right shoulder.  
  
 _What has happened? Where am I? Why am I injured? What—?_  
  
Suddenly, it all comes rushing back: Mr. Rolla, their travels together, the smoke on the horizon, and the sentinel copses of trees from which had come a volley of arrows. Sildan’s hand had just closed around Mr. Rolla’s sword when there’d been a blow like a punch to his right shoulder, then another immediately following it, to his chest, on the left side. Sildan had grunted, and toppled backward off the still-moving wagon, seeing as he fell and consciousness fled, Mr. Rolla’s wide, shocked eyes grow wider before he toppled onto the seat, those eyes closing.  
  
Then, with the pain of jarring impact, all had been blackness, until that laughter had awoken him.  
  
Now, Sildan squints in the moonlit air, toward the laughter. He can see several figures, a dozen or more yards down the road, moving about what looks to be Mr. Rolla’s wagon, emptying it out quickly and efficiently.  
  
“—nothin’ but bloody plants and seeds and the like,” one of them complains loudly.  
  
“Too-bloody-right. But at least the ol’ geezer had a decent bit of coin on him. And we might get a good bit for the mules, too—”  
  
“Will you two shut up? Lift with your hands, not your mouths!”  
  
Silence falls and more gets moved out of Mr. Rolla’s wagon. But someone whispers something, and that cruel, careless laughter breaks out again, stirring something hot-cold in SIldan’s chest, which spreads to his limbs, infusing them with a vigor he cannot countenance, only make use of.  
  
Carefully, quietly, he rolls to his right side and begins the laborious task of sitting up without making a sound.  
  
It takes forever, or so it seems, and several times he thinks he’s been spotted by one of the bandits. But they’re too busy emptying Mr. Rolla’s wagon and building a pyre. And chatting:  
  
“—plants is kinda pretty. Probably worth a bit of scratch. Maybe we should try and sell ‘em to the elves—”  
  
“We ain’t peddlers! We’re bloody  _marauders_! And that means we don’t go sellin’ flowers to no pointy-eared sprites! Now, just pile the bloody damned things in the road, and—”  
  
“Do we put the old man’s body in with the plants?”  
  
“Nah, we’ll stick him in with the wagon. He’ll burn faster, that way. Oi! Quit gold-bricking, you louts, and start breaking down that wagon, sharpish!”  
  
Sildan, once he’s managed to make it to his knees, drenched in sweat and near to passing out from pain, wonders if Mr. Rolla is already at the bottom of that pyre . . . another hand to be burned and abandoned. . . .  
  
Tears fill his eyes and that hot-cold feeling fills him again, and with a silent grunt and a herculean shove, he’s gotten to his feet, Tild’s cloak—bloody and muddy—sliding to the ground with a near-silent slither,  
  
His legs wobble, and the arrows—shoddily made, but obviously serviceable—seem to stand out of his chest and shoulder like branches from a tree.  
  
He dares not pull them out, for fear of bleeding to death. Though he knows the left one has, at the very least, nicked his lung, if not perforated it. Simply breathing hurts worse than anything Sildan ever hopes to experience.  
  
Staggering his way toward the closest of the three pyres that had drawn him and Mr. Rolla like honey draws flies, Sildan notices something glittering in the moonlight on the ground less than a yard away from his foot.  
  
Mr. Rolla’s sword:  _The Blood-Letter._  
  
As he creeps from pyre to pyre, thence to the trees to the right of the road, Sildan clutches The Blood-Letter. His senses have been tuned up, and it seems as if he can hear every sound the night has to offer: each cricket, each rustle, each flutter of leaf.  
  
Once in the copse, he leans carefully against the bark of a tree, trying to catch his burning, agonized breath and think.  
  
 _Mr. Rolla is . . . is dead, and soon to be on a pyre. And when those bandits remember there was a second rider on the wagon, they’ll come looking for me. Once they can’t find me, they’ll track me, and if they catch me, I’m surely dead. . . .  
  
I have to make it to the Greenwood before they really begin to search for me._  
  
But according to Mr. Rolla, the Greenwood is still several hours away as the mule travels. Which means it’s even longer as the walker travels, Sildan supposes wearily, fighting the urge to cough. But then, what does it matter how far away the Greenwood is? He has no choice  _but_  to reach it or die in the attempt.  
  
Pushing himself off the tree, Sildan quietly makes his way through the copse, walking in what he hopes is a northwesterly direction: away from the road and the hills in which the bandits have likely quartered.  
  
Looking up at the sky, at the now setting moon, he reckons he has till it sets completely before the bandits realize their second victim is gone.  
  
When Sildan’s made it a few hundred yards away from the noise of the bandits’ chatter and destruction, he breaks into a lopsided, staggering run, The Blood-Letter at his side.  
  


*

  
  
False dawn arrives, and there’s still no sign of pursuit.  
  
Sildan’s staggering run has long since turned into a staggering lurch, his breathing a labored agony that rises as a stark counterpoint to his noiseless footfalls. His shirt and jerkin are soaked with blood and cling clammily to his torso, even spreading to the waistband of his trousers.  
  
He can barely think for pain and breathlessness. At first he wonders why there seems to be no pursuit of him, putting it down to the bandits not wanting to approach the Greenwood even as close as a few hours away. Or perhaps they feel one half-grown boy isn’t worth the effort of chasing.  
  
Whatever their reasoning, Sildan is glad of it, for he has an even more pressing concern on his mind.  
  
He doubts he will reach the Greenwood before his strength gives out.  
  
His destination lay but a few miles off, now, in the light of  _true_  dawn, and he’s close enough to get the heady, thick, green scent of it, and despite his injuries, that scent fills him with hope and slightly renewed vigor.  
  
Indeed, that scent leads him along like a siren, for his clouded eyes have given up on discerning direction based on the rising, blurred, blood-red sun. So he follows his nose, and pays for it with each pained breath.  
  


*

  
  
Sildan has quite lost track of time and place.  
  
He knows only that he needs must keep moving in the direction of the strengthening green-home-safe scent. His vision is blurred and trebled to the point of uselessness, his sense of hearing limited almost entirely to the slushy throb of his own heartbeat and roaring rush of his own blood.  
  
Clasped in his hand, The Blood-Letter is cool and surprisingly light. It fits his hand as if made for it and does not weigh him down. In fact, it comforts him, as if he is holding Mr. Rolla’s hand. As if . . . he’s not alone—not  _truly_.  
  
The pervasive taste of copper in his mouth has, however, become quite worrying. He must spit every few minutes just to clear his mouth of blood, though he never quite manages to cleanse it of the taste.  
  
But he staggers on, the heat of the sun on his face and the scent of green in his damaged lungs telling him he’s going in the right direction. He staggers on, half-blinded and more than half-febrile, afraid to stop, for to stop means to lose more time and energy that could be used to carry his body that much closer to the Greenwood.  
  
He carries on, not because he wants to, but because he  _must_. Someone must tell King Thranduil what the bandits are doing on the edges of his lands. Someone must tell him that it’s not right to let one’s neighbors bear the brunt of a scourge that can, with one sortie, be easily taken care of.  
  
Sildan knows that he isn’t the  _best_  person to do the job, but it would appear that he is the  _only_  person. For the average peddler doesn’t seem to be making it closer to the Greenwood than a couple copses of trees that have seen more than their share of murder and mayhem.  
  
 _I have to tell King Thranduil . . . about the bandits and the peddlers, and poor Mr. Rolla . . . this cannot go unavenged. This cannot—_  
  
Sildan cries out, his chain of thought broken as he stumbles on a small scattering of loose stones and falls to his knees, The Blood-Letter finally falling from his numb hand with a light clatter. The arrows, which still stick out of him like quills from a porcupine, are jarred so badly—so  _painfully_ —that the wind is driven out of Sildan. He coughs rackingly, the taste and scent of blood stronger now, by far, than the green-home-safe scent of the Greenwood.  
  
Sildan lists to his right, then his left, on his scraped, bloodied knees, before sitting back on his feet and, less than ten yards from the Greenwood, passing out.  
  


TBC


	3. "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prince Malthengon and Captain Maethilwen of the woodland realm stumble upon a wounded enigma during their patrol of the southern border of the Greenwood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Maethilwen: Warrior Maiden  
> Malthengon: Golden-Prince

“. . . and now, Fingaladh is angry at me for absolutely no reason!”  
  
Maethilwen, Watch Captain of the Southeast Sector, snorts, elbowing Prince Malthengon lightly as they step over an ancient deadfall, wistfully, remembering a time when she would have tousled his hair, instead. But of course now, the young prince is markedly taller than her, and she’s not bothered enough to ask him to bend down so she can indulge in pointless nostalgia. “No reason that  _you_  can see, anyway.”  
  
Prince Malthengon sighs ruefully, kicking at a pile of dead leaves, making a moue when it uncovers a long-dead skunk, then carefully stepping over it. “Well, my dearest captain, if  _you_  can see a reason for her childish ire, I’d be more than grateful if you’d share it with. . . .” he trails off without finishing his statement and Maethilwen looks up at him, frowning. Prince Malthengon is frowning, as well, his silver eyes narrowed as he sniffs the air.  
  
“What? Bothered about that skunk?”  
  
“What? Oh, no. No, it’s just . . . it’s getting stronger as we move to the south and east,” he says distractedly, speaking, no doubt, of the  _other_  scent. The scent of smoke that has colored the air, as the wind changes, for the past day and night. “Can you not smell it, Maethilwen?”  
  
“Of course I smell it, my prince. I’d have to be born without a nose to miss such a dreadful pong.”  
  
Prince Malthengon wriggles his regal nose—he is, like his mother before him, the very spit and image of his grandfather—and glances at Maethilwen with stern, idealistic disapproval. “And, of course, we will do nothing about it.”  
  
The captain of the Eryn Lasgalen’s southeastern watch spreads her scarred, dusty hands. “What would you have me do, my prince?”  
  
“Oh, I don’t know . . . perhaps investigate this burning, which has been going on for into the second day?” Prince Malthengon nods southeasterly, his voice rising from its usual low cadence as he goes on. “Should we not at least  _investigate_  such a burning so close to the borders of our  _forest_.”  
  
“It is not close enough to be a worry to our people. We will, of course, report the presence of the scent to your grandfather when we return to the Halls, but we have not been given leave to break the cover of the forest to investigate the doings of men.” Maethilwen stops, putting a hand on her prince’s arm to calm him. Something that would be unthinkable with any other member of the royal family. But Prince Malthengon has been her charge in some form or another since before he was born—since before the death of his noble father and the bereavement of his lady-mother. “Let it go, Malthengon.”  
  
“How can we?” he demands, shrugging her hand off impatiently. “Someone could be hurt, out there, or dying. Surely in some sort of grievous danger! A red sun rose yesterday morn, and this morn, too! You know what that means, Maethilwen.”  
  
“Death,” she agrees somberly. “But death that does not concern  _us_.”  
  
“How can it not, so close to our lands?” Prince Malthengon now puts his hands on Maethilwen’s shoulders and looks steadily down into her eyes, his own worried and irritated. “If someone, man or dwarf, needs our help, the help of his good neighbor, how can we not respond? How can we not at least bear witness to the goings on that cause such a smoke to drift into our lands for two days?”  
  
“My prince—”  
  
“ _Please_ , Maethilwen,” he says, as startling a thing as Maethilwen’s ever heard from him—for the charming and charmed Prince Malthengon has never said  _please_  that she can recall. Not for lack of manners, but simply because his wants and needs have never gone unanticipated, let alone un _met_ —before his own shoulders droop and he sighs. “I weary of mysterious smoke that smells of charred flesh and these red suns rising as harbingers to blight our days. I am  _going_  to investigate this matter, Captain, and though I cannot order you to come with me . . . I  _ask_  that you do.”  
  
Maethilwen heaves a sigh of her own, shaking her head. No, he cannot very well  _order_  her to do anything regarding the watch. Only his grandfather, or Lieutenant Aduacharn could. And yet. . . .  
  
He has not  _tried_  to order her . . . merely  _asked_  her.  
  
He, who has never asked—never  _had_  to ask—for anything.  
  
And it certainly doesn’t help matters that he’s making that ridiculous sad-face that he uses shamelessly and to such good effect on his mother, uncle, and even grandfather.  
  
Sighing, she shakes her head and for a moment his handsome face falls.  
  
“At the first sign of threat, we retreat to the borders of our lands,” she says firmly, as if she’s not just let herself be talked into an act of insubordination that goes as high as the king, himself. And Prince Malthengon brightens, living up to his name, as ever he has. He nods and whoops, the last remnants of his recently passed childhood showing themselves without reserve at getting his own way on something he, at least, deems important.  
  
_I doubt anything will come of this,_  Maethilwen tells herself as the prince leads them towards the edges of the forest, the fingers of his left hand flirting eagerly about the pommel of his shortsword.  _Most likely indigent men were having a bonfire and roasting some poor beast on its flames. We will arrive at the edges of our lands to find them in a sated stupor a few miles distant, and that will be the end of that._  
  
Nodding to herself, Maethilwen lengthens her stride in an effort to keep up with her excited and hasty prince. When they reach a suitable tree, their path takes them  _up_.  
  


*

  
  
By the time the patrolling pair reaches the outermost edges of the forest, they can see the smoke staining the sky in the east, less than half a day’s travel away. Too far to spot the source in the gently rolling hills, and certainly too far to go investigating. Malthengon is, to put it mildly, crushed.  
  
The least he’d expected to find was a mystery somewhat closer at hand, and perhaps a good fight, too. Maybe even some  _orcs_ , though he’s never seen one, and even his elders haven’t since the early years after the War.  
  
But the scent of burning is stronger than ever, the hints of charred flesh among that of burning wood undeniable, and growing stronger. In fact, Malthengon notes with a shiver of unease, though he is largely unfamiliar with the smell of roasting beast, he would almost swear that. . . .  
  
“That is no animal,” Malthengon finally says of the charred flesh-scent, when they’ve been paused warily in the last of the trees for some time, scanning the landscape for as far as their eyes can see.  
  
Nothing out of the ordinary moves on the ground they can see. Indeed, nothing  _in_  the ordinary moves, either. All is silent and still on an otherwise pleasant spring day.  
  
“Indeed, it is not,” Maethilwen agrees worriedly, her lightly tanned face caught in a frown, pale blue-grey eyes steady on the distant smoke. Malthengon, too, trains his gaze upon it once more. “This is . . . disturbing.”  
  
“Perhaps . . . perhaps it is a funeral pyre,” Malthengon suggests, suddenly more uneasy upon realizing that they’ve gotten closer to the certainty of  _death_. He’s never known anyone who’s died, nor has he witnessed any being other than sick animals die. He shudders, and leans back against the tree they’ve taken up position in, casting a hopeful glance at Maethilwen. The captain still looks troubled, however. “Men sometimes burn their dead kin, do they not?”  
  
“Yes. Equally as often, they burn their dead enemies, too.” Maethilwen sighs, brushing a trailer of curling dark hair from her brow. Malthengon can only stare at her, for several moments in horror . . . and cautious excitement.  
  
Perhaps he’ll get his fight, after all.  
  
“Think you there was a battle, here, then? A small one, perhaps?”  
  
“Hmm. I doubt it. The other watches would have heard the noise and reported it. No battles have taken place near the forest recently.”  
  
Torn between relief and disappointment, Malthengon refrains from pouting.  
  
“Then what do you think—did you hear that?” He frowns, turning his head east and brushing the braids at his temples behind his ears. But he does not hear  _it_  again at first—that  _sound_ , like the soughing of the wind . . . if the wind were in a pained delirium.  
  
“Hear what?” Maethilwen’s head turns in the same direction as Malthengon, and she goes utterly still and silent, as has Malthengon. Both elves train their senses to the southeast, and listen. . . .  
  
It is nearly a quarter of a mark before Malhengon hears it again. This time, however, it sounds like the moaning of an injured beast, its weak voice torn to shreds even by the gentle zephyr playing across the land this day.  
  
He and Maethilwen exchange a glance.  
  
“Whatever it is, it’s in pain,” Malthengon says quietly, and Maethilwen sighs again, drawing her fighting daggers.  
  
“From the sound, ‘twould be a mercy to put it out of its misery. It’s probably a deer caught in a steel-trap, or a bear, perha—”  
  
The moan sounds for a third time, and this time, there are words on its back. Words they cannot make out, but  _words_ , nonetheless.  
  
“That is no animal,” Malthengon says again, and Maethilwen nods, sheathing her daggers and already leaping spryly into the neighboring tree. Malthengon is hot on her heels.  
  


*

  
  
They spot the—possibly dead—boy from a distance, quite before they reach him. He’s wearing the dark, heavy woolen garments of a Daleman or Laketowner, sprawled on his back in the grass mere yards from the first of the trees leading into Eryn Lasgalen. In one dirty, bloody hand is a blade of elvish make. . . .  
  
There are two arrows protruding from high in the boy’s chest and he hasn’t made one of those awful moans in some minutes.  
  
His chest doesn’t appear to be rising and falling at all, as far as Malthengon can tell.  
  
“Is he . . . dead?” he asks softly as they descend from the trees some yards to the west and north of the boy’s position. Maethilwen lands soundlessly in the soft mulch, Malthengon a second behind her.  
  
“Possibly. There’s only one way to find out,” she says tersely, her eyes narrowing as she squints at the surrounding landscape. Still, nothing moves.  
  
“I’ll defend, and you carry,” she commands, marching silently, quickly toward the edge of their cover. Malthengon, his blood racing, draws his shortsword as she draws her daggers.  
  
Seconds later, the pair slink out of the fringes of the forest, low to the ground, Malthengon hyperaware of how visible they both are in their forest-green uniforms, and their respective dark and bright hair.  
  
But it is the merest distance from trees to boy, and when they reach him, Maethilwen barely spares him a glance before taking up a defensive stance beyond the boy and Malthengon.  
  
Malthengon glances around perfunctorily before sheathing his sword and kneels by the boy, his fingers immediately going to the boy’s cold, pale neck for a pulse. He gets one, thready and slow, but a sign of life. However something else takes up his notice at the same moment he feels the struggling beat of the boy’s heart.  
  
“This is no Daleman!” Malthengon breathes, one finger going drifting from pulse, to ear lobe. He follows the boy’s ear up and up, to its pointed end. At this touch, the boy moans softly, his eyes rolling under grey lids in dark hollows. A moment later, they open, a startling, but soft green like moss-agate. Pinprick pupils try but fail to focus on Malthengon before fluttering shut again.  
  
“He yet lives?”  
  
Malthengon looks up at Maethilwen. Like a spooked cat, she practically bristles out from under the safety of their trees. Malthengon, who has only rarely been from under the forest’s shadow, revels in the feeling of possibility and uncertainty.  
  
_This_ , he thinks almost giddily, _is why my Uncle travels so much. This lightness and openness. This danger . . . this_ freedom. . . .  
  
“He lives. But I know not for how much longer,” Malthengon says, scooping up the boy’s light frame. The boy starts to struggle weakly, but soon subsides, going limp in Malthengon’s arms, though he does not let go of his sword. He smells of mortal sweat, burning, and clean grass. “I dare not even remove the arrows that felled him. We’d best get him back into the forest. To my mother.”  
  
Malthengon takes one last breath of the free air, then strides purposefully back toward cover, Maethilwen at his back, matching him step for step, still facing outward, daggers at the ready.  
  
Once under the safety of the trees, Maethilwen halts Malthengon with a hand on the arm. “Let me see him,” she says, taking a look at the boy for long moments, her sharp eyes missing nothing: the seeming frailness of the boy, his freckled, too-pale face under a Daleman’s fading winter tan; even the very cut of his fiery auburn hair—worn quite unfashionably short, even for a mortal man—cut to above the ears; the too-fine, pretty features that are nonetheless vaguely familiar. At least to Malthengon.  
  
And perhaps to Maethilwen, too, for she stares at him for some time, her face growing more and more disturbed as she does so.  
  
“Maethilwen?” Malthengon asks tentatively, and his captain looks up at him, startled from her reverie.  
  
“We must get him to your lady-mother,” she says slowly, heavily. “’Twill be best to have him under healing hands ‘ere the sun sets.”  
  
Clutching the boy to him—he couldn’t be more than . . . seventeen summers, Malthengon estimates, perhaps eighteen—Malthengon follows Maethilwen into the beginning thicket, towards the dense, green, healing heart of the forest.  
  


*

  
  
As they leave behind the edges of their lands, Maethilwen seems more and more disturbed about the boy, not less, sneaking glances at him as they travel the well-worn—to an elf’s eyes—paths of Eryn Lasgalen.  
  
Malthengon, for his part, steals quite a few looks at the boy, himself, puzzling out the riddle of who this mortal-seeming elf might be. For certainly, though he reminds Malthengon of  _someone_ , Malthengon cannot for the life of him recall with any specificity whom. Perhaps it is the style of clothing that is throwing his memory. And the sword—which the boy still clutches despite the overall limpness of his body—Is older than Malthengon.  
  
Who  _is_  this boy?  
  
_Well, he’s pretty enough that Fingaladh will no doubt despise him,_  Malthengon thinks wryly, admiring the soft curve of the boy’s cheek and the fan of auburn lashes spread upon them.  _Assuming he stays with us for any length of time. Which he likely will, since he was clearly coming to the forest when his wounds felled him. Oh, I wonder who he_ is. . . .  
  
With the extent of the boy’s injuries—his labored, wet breathing and blood-loss—Malthengon is starting to wonder if the poor thing will die before being able to disclose his identity. He very well  _might_  if they don’t get him the Halls soon.  
  
Malthengon’s worry begins to double and treble as they make their way north and west. Thankfully it’s not much longer before they cross paths with other watches—most fortuitously Gaelgal’s and Siladuilin’s—and word is sent ahead by messenger bird, so that by the time they’ve entered the true deeps of the forest, they find mounts waiting for them at Captain Eirien and Tondor’s sector: a stag and a doe in their primes, as gentle and wise as the patient Earth.  
  
Their gait is swift, but as careful and measured as that of any king, and Malthengon finds his worries for the boy’s wounds being jarred fading as they ride. Next to him, Maethilwen is now focused on the path ahead and the woods around them.  
  
In his arms, the boy—fevered, and muttering to himself in Westron—continues to live.  
  
Whoever he is, whatever his line . . . they’re fighters, and Malthengon’s hopes for the day  _not_  ending in this strange boy’s death begin to climb.  
  
When they at last reach the Halls of the King, sometime after the sun has begun to wester, when the doors to the Halls open at their approach and the guard stands stolidly aside—when Lady Nimiel hurries out in her flowing silver gown, her personal guards in Maethilwen’s absence acting as bearers of a long, padded litter—Malthengon breathes a sigh of relief that he supposes he will always feel upon coming home and to his mother’s arms.  
  
There’s precious little in this world or any other, in his experience, that a caring and determined mother can’t put right.  
  
“Mother,” he says, smiling his relief when the stag stops, the doe stopping right next to it. Maethilwen springs off, and is immediately at Malthengon’s side, arms held out for the boy.  
  
“Let me take him,” she says, almost croons, and more to the boy, than to Malthengon, who carefully hands the boy off to her. She takes his light body without any sign of strain or effort and turns to face the approaching Lady Nimiel and her erstwhile assistants.  
  
Lady Nimiel smiles, her regal face lighting up with warmth and genuine pleasure to see her oldest friend, despite the circumstances. “Hello, Maethilwen,” she breathes, curtseying girlishly when she stops near the arrived duo.  
  
Maethilwen bows slightly, with a care for the boy still in her arms. “My lady.”  
  
“It has been far too long,” Lady Nimiel says softly, her silver eyes steady on Maethilwen’s. Maethilwen smiles back, almost shyly—she is, Malthengon’s noticed, only ever shy around his mother—her face coloring ever so slightly.  
  
“Even a moment out of your ladyship’s presence is far too long for those of us who are fortunate enough to know you.”  
  
Lady Nimiel laughs, like a tinkling of silver bells in a playful breeze. “Oh, my good captain! You should have been named  _Celebeth_ , not  _Maethilwen_!”  
  
Reddening even further about the cheeks, Maethilwen clears her throat and clutches the boy to herself tighter for a few moments, before holding him out as if proffering a rather grisly gift. It’s then that Lady Nimiel looks down at him, and the amused, knowing look on her face is driven away by an expression of shock and . . .  _recognition_ , perhaps, that causes Malthengon to wonder. When her gaze ticks to Maethilwen’s again, her hand flies to her mouth in distress. “Where was he found?”  
  
“To the southeast, my lady.” Maethilwen is all business, now, and at Lady Nimiel’s direction, she places the boy on the litter borne by the two assistants. “Just outside the borders of Eryn Lasgalen.”  
  
“Oh, my,” the Lady leans down over the boy and looks into his face for long moments, before placing a hand over his forehead and eyes and closing her own eyes.  
  
For a few seconds, there’s a strange feel to the air—a rallying of Lady Nimiel’s powers that causes every hair on Malthengon’s body to stand on end—and the boy on his litter twitches once and sighs tiredly. The sword falls from his hand to the ground, with a loud clatter.  
  
Maethilwen—never one to leave a weapon laying on the ground—instantly snatches it up and hands it to Malthengon, who takes it with a frown as he studies the runes on the hilt and blade.  
  
_Blood-Letter_ , is the name of this sword. It is a name Malthengon has heard before, from his Uncle Legolas. In some story or other about the War. . . .  
  
_I wonder where such a young boy would have gotten a famous blade such as this,_  he thinks.  _It’s one of many such questions that attend this boy. This boy whom, it seems, everyone recognizes but I. . . ._  
  
Then he’s catching up to the litter bearing this mysterious guest onward into Hall of Healing, his questions forgotten. For the moment.  
  


*

  
  
Maethilwen strides down the corridors of the Halls of the King, lost in thought.  
  
Her feet know the way to the throne room without her input, and it is there that they carry her without deviation.  
  
With absent, but familiar nods to the guards—and nods of deference to the nobles—she passes, Maethilwen’s long-legged stride—quite long, for a woman so small in stature—takes her through rooms dedicated to nothing so much as their own beauty, rooms that showcase their own decoration, rooms whose quieter loveliness invites stopping for a moment of meditation or remembrance.  
  
Usually, Maethilwen’s mindfulness permits appreciation of these rooms, even as her primary focus and business lay elsewhere (usually reporting to Aduacharn or the king), but this evening, her mind lays as far afield as ever it has. It lays many miles hence, in the city of Dale, on a night not so long ago. . . .  
  
_Maethilwen adjusts the dark cloak she wears, feeling as if all eyes have landed on her. Dressed as she is, as a noblewoman of Dale, under the cloak of rich wool and the cloak of evening, she creeps down the dark, slightly smoky corridors of the close, stone castle, careful not to disturb the bundle in the basket on her arm.  
  
Despite her feelings of being singled out, she passes unseen—unnoticed—by the servants of the palace. She is, of course, _ noticed _, but only in that absently deferential way servants show to the betters who cross their busy paths, but don’t require assistance.  
  
They will never remember seeing her, and if they do, they certainly won’t remember her _ face _, shadowed as it is by the hood of the cloak. (And the fact is, the servants are used to cloaked and cowled noblewomen covertly entering the palace on business . . . or pleasure. Bard II’s sister-sons, all three, are wastrels and philanderers, it is well known among palace insiders.)  
  
So Maethilwen’s presence, though noticed in passing, is not marked upon. It is presumed that she’s some daughter of the city sneaking in to see either Princes Andrion, Kilyan, or Philib. Or perhaps all three.  
  
But Maethilwen does not know this. As she moves through the palace, telling herself she belongs there, at least for this brief moment in time, the bundle in the basket starts to stir, making lonely, yearning little cries.  
  
“Hush,” Maethilwen murmurs under her breath, taking the risk of pausing near a torch to peer into the basket. Familiar green eyes, wet and melancholy, meet her own, and the babe’s mouth works as if he’s hungry. Or about to cry. “Shhh, _ idh hen . . . idh. _”  
  
Rocking the basket, she smiles down at the babe until his eyes flutter shut and his breathing evens out. For a few moments thereafter, she watches him sleep, transfixed by how tiny, how perfect, how like _ her _he is, in miniature.  
  
Lost in her contemplation of the child, she does not move until voices coming down the corridor from around a turn draw closer.  
  
Stepping with alacrity into the shadows of a recessed door, Maethilwen bows her head and stays utterly still till the speakers pass her, laughing and speaking what sounds like a dialect of Harad.  
  
Itself not surprising, as the queen herself is from Harad, but it gives Maethilwen pause . . . reminds her of that of which she chooses to think about rarely: the War.  
  
And, as if sensing her changed mood, the babe begins to stir again, making noises that even a mortal man could hear, were there one nearby.  
  
It’s time to stop woolgathering and get this done.  
  
Maethilwen hurries down hallways and corridors as if she’d been born to them. The descriptions she’d received of the palace in Dale were quite specific, and she manages to find her way not only to the royal family’s wing, but to Prince GIrion’s rooms in a timely fashion.  
  
Kneeling at his door, she places the basket on the step and makes certain the complaining child is well tucked in. His blanket is blue, like the sky above Eryn Lasgalen, with white patches on it that represent stars. And in the top right corner of this blanket, stitched into the woolen fabric, is a single word in crimson Westron. Maethilwen can read it if she focuses on each individual letter.  
  
“S-I-L-D-A-N . . . Sildan,” she murmurs to the boy, who quiets once more at the sound of her voice. He stares up at her as if mesmerized. Indeed, he is only a few days old and she is the first and only person he has ever seen.  
  
She has been, up until this point, his world.  
  
Swallowing, Maethilwen glances both ways down the corridor before quickly planting a tender kiss on the boy’s forehead. He makes a surprised sound, and smiles a toothless drooling smile up at her.  
  
“Fare thee well, Sildan of Dale. Until our paths cross again,” she whispers, blinking away tears at her choice of farewell. She knows it is unlikely she will ever see _ this _child again, and yet. . . .  
  
“Until we meet again.” She brushes a gentle finger down his soft, warm cheek before standing up and knocking briskly on the door to Prince Girion’s rooms.  
  
It is only when she hears someone inside stirring—a voice calling, a laugh, and another door closing inside—that she disappears down the hall, and back the way she came.  
  
In half a mark, she is exiting Dale, and bearing northeast on the great road._  
  
Shaking her head, Maethilwen’s focused stride slows until, within visual distance of the doors to the throne room, she stops, one hand on her hip, the other gone to her forehead, as if to shield her eyes. Or to block from the sight of others sudden tears.  
  
Maethilwen does not yet know what drove the boy from Dale after not even a quarter of a century there. Perhaps he was persecuted there, for his half-elven heritage. Perhaps he was pursued for crimes he’d committed. Perhaps he was merely curious about the other half of his heritage and fell afoul of brigands along the way . . . there was no way to know, just yet. But if there is one place he should be able to come and find succor, it should surely be  _here_.  
  
In another life, he might have grown up here—might have been under her tutelage just as Prince Malthengon had. He might have—  
  
_Oh, he might have a lot of things,_  Maethilwen thinks impatiently, wiping her eyes and continuing on after a deep, steadying breath.  _He might have grown wings and flown to the Undying Lands. I’ll never know. But he’s here, now, and in need of help. I must convince the king to allow him stay for as long as he needs to. He is, after all, one of us. He is . . . home._  
  
And that last fragment rings in her ears all the way to the doors of the throne room, which the guard open for her, then shut behind her when she passes through with a nod.  
  
The king’s dais is set back far from the door, and all the way to it, Maethilwen tries to come up with convincing words in argument for the boy finding succor in Eryn Lasgalen. Communication with words has never been her strong-suit. Even when she was younger, and she and Lady Nimiel were more confidants than guard and guarded, she’d never been much for talking. The silences that Lady Nimiel had always sought to leaven with music or laughter, Maethilwen had loved for their stillness and tranquility. The only thing she’d loved more had been Lady Nimiel. . . .  
  
Though everyone had grown quieter—become, atimes, wrapped in their own cocoons of silence and remembrance—since the War. Even the bright Lady Nimiel, whose beloved husband Prince Caladael had died in battle.  
  
But now, silence would do no one any good, least of all the boy who lay fighting for life under the hands of the greatest healer in Arda, since the departure of Lord Elrond.  
  
Maethilwen climbs the stairs to the dais, her mind awhirl with trivialities despite her attempts to wrestle it into some sort of focus. The king is, on the best days, mercurial and melancholy, isolationist and clannish. This had not been the case immediately after the Great Battle of the Five Armies, but, as with many who’d lived through the War of the Ring, he’d become grim, and wary of the lands beyond his own in spite of the semblances of friendship. Even Erebor and Dale were looked upon with that same wariness: not as if those realms housed deadly enemies, but as if, at any moment, they might be bereft of allies . . . whether through politics or conflagration.  
  
The sylvan elves were, as men might say,  _on their own_ , in the eyes of their king. . . .  
  
Bowing deeply at the first of the dais’ three steps, Maethilwen waits to be acknowledged, banishing her prior weighty thoughts from her troubled mind.  
  
Once upon a time, the king was known for letting supplicants and servants await his leisure before deigning to notice them, but in these latter days, he treats each petitioner with his utmost attention and consideration the very  _moment_  he notices them.  
  
The problem is, of course, the king’s mind, though still sound . . .  _wanders._  Maethilwen has, on several occasions, waited to be noticed for near to a mark, while the king recalls his mind from when or where it sometimes travels.  
  
(It is whispered, among many, that the king is perhaps ready to make his journey to the Grey Havens. The woodland realm would then fall to either Lady Nimiel, or Prince Legolas. The former being a much more likely candidate, as the latter is always off travelling with his dwarf-companion.)  
  
“Captain Maethilwen,” the king’s voice rings out, rich and clarion, in the otherwise empty throne room. Once, even now, in the marks before supper time, the throne room would be filled with nobles, supplicants, petitioners, and entertainers. But, like Maethilwen, like so many others, the king has come to appreciate his own cocoon of silence, without interruption. “Rise and report.”  
  
Biting back a sigh—just when she could  _do_  with a bit of waiting to be noticed, and perhaps pull-together some sort of argument for allowing the boy to stay even after he’s been healed—Maethilwen straightens and climbs the last two steps, till she’s facing her king.  
  
As ever, the king is resplendent. A vision of a king of elves. Under his living crown, heavy platinum hair hangs straight around his shoulders and frames a face like something out of the old stories, all noble bone-structure and alabaster skin. His silver and green robes sparkle intermittently when he moves, light flashing off of gems sewn into the fabric. But none sparkle so much as the silver eyes that watch Maethilwen unreadably from under heavy, dark brows.  
  
She meets that gaze and holds it for as long as is respectful, then bows again, this time, keeping her eyes on the hem of the king’s robes.  
  
For the king is still, on occasion, capricious, and if he reads on Maethilwen how much she wants the boy to  _stay_ —should he choose to do so—he might just refuse the boy, based on that.  
  
It’s not as likely a scenario these days as it was two hundred years ago, but it’s not unheard of. And the king is  _very_  touchy about whom he lets enter the woodland realm.  
  
And never before has he let any guest not born to the realm  _stay_. . . .  
  
“My king,” Maethilwen begins softly, without inflection. A moment later, when she has nothing to follow that acknowledgement with, she risks a glance up at the king’s eyes, before looking away again, her brow furrowing. “My king . . . the child has found his way back to us,” she says, slightly rushed, and with emphasis on the  _back to us_. “Sildan has found his way home.”  
  


TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Maethilwen: Warrior Maiden  
> Malthengon: Golden-Prince


	4. "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maethilwen must convince her king to let Sildan, who is on death's door, stay. Sildan gets a choice to make, and he makes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes/Warnings: None.

King Thranduil is silent for some moments after Maethilwen’s announcement. Silent for long enough that she gets bored with the flashing of the gems sewn into his robe, and dares a look up at his face.  
  
He’s not looking at her. Instead, he’s staring off into the distance, frowning. Thinking his mind may have gone wandering again, Maethilwen ventures to speak further.  
  
“Prince Malthengon and I were out on watch when we came across the scent of smoke from beyond the forest, and—”  
  
“Did you investigate this smoke?” the king asks, still staring into the distance beyond Maethilwen’s right shoulder. Her brow furrows and she bows deeply.  
  
“We did not, my king. We were not given leave to investigate matters beyond the bounds of Eryn Lasgalen.”  
  
To that, the king makes no reply, so Maethilwen goes on.  
  
“The boy was laying less than five yards from the tree-line, having fallen in his tracks from his injuries. He hovers near death’s door, but we believe he was making his way to Eryn Lasgalen.” Taking a breath, Maethilwen meets the king’s distant gaze again, or tries to. “I take full responsibility for leaving the safety of the forest to retrieve him.”  
  
The king’s eyes close and he puts one hand to his brow, as if greatly tasked by his own thoughts, taking a breath of his own.  
  
“And you say he is injured?”  
  
“Yes, my king. High in his shoulder and chest by two arrows. He has lost a lot of blood.”  
  
The king takes another deep breath before opening his eyes. They glitter at Maethilwen from under the shelter of his hand like silver gems left in a near-lightless place.  
  
“Did he say who had injured him, and why?”  
  
“No, my king. He was unconscious when we found him. He had no possessions but for a bag of coins—Dale-ish—and . . .  _this_.” Maethilwen steps forward and removes the Blood-Letter from her belt and presents it to the king with a bow.  
  
The king’s gaze shifts to the famous blade and only now, does he sit forward, his hand leaving his forehead to reach for the hilt of the blade.  
  
When it leaves her hands, Maethilwen steps back and waits for the king to speak.  
  
He looks down the length of the blade for a few moments, then swings it experimentally, economically, before his eyes tick to Maethilwen again. “It has been well-cared for. That would have pleased Faefair to know, and will, no doubt, please Aduacharn. But one wonders how such a young boy came to carry, let alone be felled whilst in possession of, such a noble blade. There’s not a speck of blood on it.”  
  
“He may have been ambushed, my king,” Maethilwen says heavily, shaking her head. “That smoke smelled of burnt flesh, and may have drawn him to investigate, just as it drew the prince’s interest. I think—”  
  
“Speak to me no more to me about this smoke from beyond the borders of our lands, Maethilwen, for whatever it may be is the province of our neighbors, and we shall let _them_  speculate further about it.” The king settles back in his throne, the Blood-Letter still in hand. “How fares the boy at my daughter’s hands?”  
  
“The Lady Nimiel was tending to him as I left to come here. I know not whether he yet lives, my king.”  
  
“We shall have to see, then, whether he lives or dies,” the king says absently. “Though I suppose in either event, word will have to be sent to King Bard and Prince Girion, so that they may come and collect boy or body, forthwith.”  
  
Maethilwen freezes, then forces herself to relax. “My king . . . in all likelihood the boy was coming here. To us. Eryn Lasgalen was his ultimate destination.”  
  
“And?” Those silver eyes have landed upon her once more, as sharp as the Blood-Letter.  
  
Biting back a sigh, Maethilwen bows again. “He may have questions, my king. About his heritage.”  
  
“And we will answer them,” the king replies with a negligent wave of his elegant hand. “When he is well enough to hear such answers as we have to give. When he is well enough to travel, his kin will take him back to Dale.”  
  
“But, my king . . . we  _are_  his kin.” Maethilwen meets the king’s eyes, greatly daring. It’s not easy to hold his gaze, but hold it she does. “What if he came to us seeking more than answers?”  
  
“Such as?” The king’s tone is positively frosty, now. But having been asked a direct question of her king, there’s nothing for it but for Maethilwen to answer.  
  
“Such as . . . succor. A home.”  
  
“He is a child of men, and belongs with his people.”  
  
“He was born of the Sylvan elves, my king.” It slips out before Maethilwen can remind herself whom she would argue with. But having spoken, she can only go on. Go on for the child she’d once tended and guarded, and delivered to his father . . . for the child she even now regrets leaving in Dale.  
  
For that child, she would be brave, now. Even to the point of insubordination.  
  
“He was born of us—born  _here_ , at the hands of the Lady Nimiel, herself. And he has clearly risked everything, including his life, to come back to us. To turn him away without even hearing him out would be. . . .”  
  
The king’s eyebrows drift gently upward when Maethilwen hesitates to finish that thought. Finally, sighing, she does. “’Twould be . . .  _cruel_.”  
  
Silence from the king, who watches her with his unreadable, sharp eyes. Maethilwen bows again. “I mean no disrespect, my king. I simply anticipate not only the boy’s questions, but his desire to be someplace where he . . . fits in. And clearly, that place is  _not_  Dale.”  
  
“On what evidence do you base such conjecture?”  
  
“On his very presence  _here_ , my king.”  
  
“In Dale, he is a prince of men, Captain Maethilwen. With the potential to lead a truly charmed life, as men reckon it. Here, he would be simply another elf. One of no family or standing. He may not know that, having no inkling of our ways, but you, Captain, certainly know better.” The King sits back in the throne, his hooded eyes taking Maethilwen’s measure. “Once this is explained to him, whatever childish dreams he has of . . . running away to live with the elves will vanish, like morning mist in the silver sun.”  
  
Despite wanting to push the issue, Maethilwen bows deeply and bites her tongue. The king has been exceedingly patient with her so far. To say anymore would be to risk the sharp side of the king’s tongue, and possibly censure.  
  
Suddenly the king laughs, an amused, almost condescending one. “And yet, I see you would say more for this boy. Speak, then, that I might be swayed to let him stay, should he wish it.”  
  
Blinking in surprise, Maethilwen straightens and gapes at the king. He’s staring off into the distance beyond her shoulder again, so hard, that Maethilwen is tempted to look around to see what might be there. But she doesn’t. Merely asks: “My king?” and takes an uneasy step backwards.  
  
“It has been nearly twenty years since you smuggled the child into Dale and to his father. And yet you’re fighting harder to keep him now, than you did then. And  _that_  is saying something. Clearly the boy has made some impact on you, that you would argue so sincerely and strongly on his behalf. Share with me that impact, that I might understand.”  
  
Startled—shocked, really—Maethilwen opens her mouth to speak, not knowing what will come out, but knowing it’d better be damned good.  
  


*

  
  
Prince Malthengon sits in a chair outside the boy’s sickroom in the royal quarters and waits.  
  
The sun has long since set, and the torches in the corridor are lit. Malthengon’s keen ears train for even the slightest sound from the sickroom. But he hears nothing. Not even the occasional murmur.  
  
 _It’s been at least an hour,_  he thinks worriedly.  _In that time, my mother could have saved the boy’s life ten times over! What’s taking so long?_  
  
Malthengon half-stands, wondering if he dares go back in. His mother had had already shown him the door once for pacing about and asking questions while she scanned the boy and worked her wonders.  
  
His hand is on the door knob, and he’s debating turning it when he hears nearly noiseless feet coming down from around the turn of the corridor. He recognizes both sets and hurriedly sits back down in his chair, attempting to look as if he hadn’t been about to disobey his mother’s unspoken command to remain outside till she was done.  
  
Within seconds of him having sat down, Maethilwen and his grandfather round the corner. The former looks both weary and worried, the latter determined and austere, as ever.  
  
Malthengon jumps up and bows respectfully. “Grandfather. Captain Maethilwen.”  
  
Maethilwen bows back. “My prince.”  
  
“Malthengon,” his grandfather says somberly. “Is there any word, yet, on the boy?”  
  
“None. Mother has been in there since we got back.” Malthengon sighs, shaking his head. “I fear for him, in spite of Lady Nimiel’s talents at healing.”  
  
Malthengon’s grandfather crooks one eyebrow. “Well. I see Captain Maethilwen isn’t the only one who’s fallen under the boy’s enchantment,” he says, searching Malthengon’s face intently.  
  
Malthengon blushes. “I—I am under no enchantment, Grandfather. I merely wish to see the boy live.”  
  
“Hmm,” is all Thranduil replies, drifting past Maethilwen and Malthengorn to the door. He puts his hand on the knob and turns it. But before he opens the door, he glances back at them, his eyes unreadable.  
  
“Wait here, both of you,” he commands, before letting himself into the boy’s room and shutting the door firmly.  
  
Malthengon and Maethilwen look at each other. Malthengon shrugs and Maethilwen sighs, leaning against the wall next to the chair.  
  


*

  
  
_Walking.  
  
He’s been walking for so long, he cannot now remember towards what he is walking . . . or _ from _what he is walking.  
  
But the day is pleasant: the breeze swift and crisp, the sky a brilliant, cobalt blue, the leaves so many brilliant colors . . . but the grass still green. It is a perfect autumn day and, glancing around, he marvels that autumn isn’t _ everyone’s _favorite season.  
  
The only thing that could possibly make this day better would be . . . a companion. _ Yes, _he muses, kicking up drifts of orange, gold, and red as he strolls along._ A companion  _would_  be nice. . . . _  
  
“All you ever had to do was wish for one,” an amused, vaguely familiar voice says at his side, and he looks up, both surprised and somehow . . . not.  
  
Walking next to him is a young man of average height, with skin the color of freshly-tilled earth and dark, laughing eyes in a plain, pleasant face. He’s dressed in a light, dark-blue tunic and brown trews. His feet are bare.  
  
“That’s how it works here, after all,” the young man says, gesturing to the world around him before chuckling. “’Course, we’re all a bit disoriented when we first arrive. Takes a bit of experimenting to suss out how things work in the Fields, but time is fairly irrelevant, here. For those of us that belong, at any rate.” Those dark eyes scan him intently, curiously. “I don’t think you do, son. It’s not nearly your time, yet.”  
  
“My time?” he asks, confused, but not overly alarmed. Indeed, who could be alarmed in such a fine place as this? In such fine weather? With such fine company? “What do you mean?”  
  
“Ohhhh.” Another chuckle, this one seeming rather too old for such a young man. “Nothing important. Just that it was _ my time _to come here, young Sildan, Prince of Dale. But it’s not yet yours.”  
  
_ Sildan _, he thinks bemusedly._ Yes, that was my name. Sildan Bowman . . . Prince of Dale. _  
  
And so realizing this, he looks at the young man beside him with new eyes. Eyes that half-remember.  
  
“And you’re . . . familiar to me . . . but I can’t place you.”  
  
“Jittney Rolla, formerly of Dale and many other places, at your service,” the young man says, bowing with spread hands, a twinkle in his eyes. “We knew each other back on Arda. Not for long, mind, but you were a good companion.” Those dancing, friendly eyes dim briefly. “I’m only sorry for the way it ended, my boy. Sorry for the pass I’ve brought you to.”  
  
“Pass?”  
  
The young man—Jittney—nods once, putting a hand on Sildan’s shoulder. “I should’ve known better. Should’ve scented a trap. And that’s what it was, make no mistake about _ that _. And I drove us right into it. I’m so sorry, lad.”  
  
At this, Jittney hangs his head and sighs. Sildan, still more entranced by the day, and its complete and perfect serenity, covers the hand on his shoulder and squeezes, till Jittney looks up, a hang-dog expression on his earnest face.  
  
“Whatever you’ve done, or think you’ve done wrong, it is of no moment, here. Not in _ this _place,” Sildan says kindly, his heart lighter than it’s been since . . . ever. For he knows that what he says is true. That in_ this _place, guilt and self-recrimination are about as welcome as a full-body rash. “Can we not simply enjoy this place, wherever it is, for as long as we are here?”  
  
Jittney blinks at him. “Sildan, lad . . . do you not know where you are?” Off Sildan’s shaken head, Jittney sighs again, guiltily. “You are in the _ Fields _. The Evergreen Fields of the Lady Yavanna. Where men and halflings come to rest after death and before the next life.”  
  
Brow furrowing, Sildan looks around him. “Then that means that . . . I am dead?” he asks, uncertain how he feels about that. Or about anything else. The pervasive sense of contentment that seems to be part and parcel of this place makes it difficult to think—at least of unpleasant things.  
  
Frowning, Jittney stops walking, and Sildan stops with him. “Not entirely, I think. Some part of you yet clings to life. There is a . . . glow about you. An aura of white-gold light that I have only seen around those who are to be sent back. Or sent on.”  
  
“Sent on?”  
  
“To their next life.” Jittney looks up at the sky. “I have not yet been lucky enough to make the Lady’s acquaintance, but I’ve met many of the other residents of the Fields, and they’ve all told me the same thing. Indeed, I’ve seen people with the aura disappear before my very eyes. Off to their next lives. Or perhaps their old lives, I suppose.”  
  
“What makes you think I won’t be sent on to my next life? Who says the old one still waits for me?” Sildan asks curiously, looking behind him as if he could see that old life. But all he sees are endless fields and hills and valleys, dotted with bits of forest, here and there.  
  
_ Forest. . . . _Sildan thinks, his brow furrowing once more in thought. Thought that’s hampered by the pleasant sense of well-being that attends this place and the fogginess of his mind.  
  
He remembers. . . .  
  
“I . . . I was going to the Greenwood,” he grits out, eyes squinched shut as he wrestles the fog in his mind for even a scrap of memory about who he had been and where he had been going. Even on this cool autumn day, it breaks him out in a sweat, and causes him to put two trembling fingers to his temple and groan, as if literally moving about great blocks that stand between him and his memories. “I was g-going to the Greenwood and _ you _were with me. And you were_ older _. . . .”  
  
“Certainly older-looking than this handsome devil walking beside you, now.” Jittney laughs, a familiar sound meant for a much older man than he currently appears to be. “What else do you remember, Sildan?  
  
Shaking his head, Sildan sighs and opens his eyes. The entire world seems to throb like one giant heartbeat. “Only that I was traveling from my home of Dale, to the Greenwood. I do not remember why, only that I was. I don’t even rightly remember what Dale was like, only that I lived there, and I was mostly happy there, until. . . .”  
  
“Until?”  
  
Shaking his head again, as if to clear it, Sildan laughs limply. “Perhaps _ you _could tell_ me _. You knew my name while I did not.”  
  
Jittney smiles kindly and claps Sildan on the shoulder. “I knew your name because, though it took me a while to piece it together, I figured out who you were while we traveled together. Despite your attempts to hide those pointy elf-ears.” His eyes tick to Sildan’s right ear, and Sildan reaches up to touch it. It is indeed pointed. Jittney’s ears are not.  
  
“A young, auburn-haired, green-eyed elf from Dale, wearing finer clothes than most people will ever be able to afford, as fair as a summer’s day—if you don’t mind me saying—with the bearing of a prince? Who else could you be, but Prince Sildan of Dale?” Jittney snorts and Sildan blushes. “But you seemed to want to keep that secret, so I let you have your anonymity. You told a good story, and you were an even better listener. Didn’t put on airs and you were quick to help with the work, whether it was making camp or breaking camp. You were a good lad.”  
  
Blushing harder under such praise, Sildan looks down at his feet. He, unlike Jittney, is shod: in well-made brown boots that come up to just above his thigh. And he’s dressed quite strangely. At least, not like how it _ seems _he should be dressed. His clothing consists of leaf-green leggings and tunic, both of which fit almost as a second skin.  
  
Just then, the breeze, which had been playful before, if a bit brisk, picks up, blowing Sildan’s hair all over the place. Annoyed, he reaches up to gather it up and twist it into a knot, when he realizes that his hair has never _ been _long enough to twist into a knot.  
  
He can’t exactly remember for _ sure _, but he is nonetheless certain that his hair has always been quite short. Just long enough to cover his unfortunate ears.  
  
Now, however, it seems to hang almost to his waist. And his attempts to gather it up are foiled by the sudden onslaught of wind.  
  
Finally, giving up on the hair, Sildan catches up with Jittney, who’s walked on by some yards, now, hands clasped behind his back.  
  
“A good lad,” he says again, picking up where he’d left off from before. “Too good to come to such a grisly end.”  
  
“What do you mean?” Sildan asks tentatively. Jittney doesn’t look at him, merely frowns and hangs his head. “How did I . . . wind up here? You said there was a trap . . . is that right? An ambush?”  
  
“Yes.” Jittney sighs, shaking his head. “Bandits, on the road to the Greenwood. We were shot with arrows from the cover of trees lining either side of the great road. You were shot first, and fell off the wagon. But I imagine you didn’t die instantly, else we’d have arrived here at the same time. Though time here _ is _relative. I know that on Arda, less than two days have passed since the ambush, and yet I’ve been in the fields for longer than that. How much longer, I could not tell you.”  
  
Sildan thinks that over, or tries to. He can’t quite wrap his mind around time moving differently in two such similar-seeming places.  
  
“How long, do you think, till I know whether I’m . . . going to go on to my next life, or go back to my old one?” he wonders. “Who decides? Is it the Lady Yavanna? Or . . . or Eru, Itself?”  
  
“Actually, it is you who decides, Sildan of Dale.”  
  
Startled, Sildan looks to his left at the achingly familiar voice, and sees. . . .  
  
“Sigrid?” he breathes, and upon saying her name, his memory returns fully. Dale, and his reasons for leaving. Meeting Jittney Rolla on the road. Their days spent travelling and telling stories. The _ ambush _. . . .  
  
Jittney’s death, and Sildan’s own pained, delirious stagger toward the Greenwood.  
  
He staggers a little under this second onslaught, this time not of external forces, but of internal ones. Jittney and Sigrid each catch him by an arm. Sildan can only stare and stare at Sigrid, tall and regal in her Harad-style black tunic and trousers.  
  
“You’re . . . you’re dead, too, Sig?” slips from numb lips, and Sigrid smiles gently.  
  
“I was never _ alive _. At least not in the sense that_ you _mean,” she says, and it’s then that Sildan notices instead of dark brown, her round eyes are a strange greeny-gold. “And I am not your cousin Sigrid, Sildan. I merely appear to you in the form with which you are most comfortable. To Jittney, I appear to be someone else, entirely. But my name is Yavanna, and you are in my demesne.” She bows slightly. “I bid you welcome.”  
  
Sildan retrieves his arm from Her, backing toward Jittney, who is bowing, himself. He nearly knocks the other man over. “You’re—You’re—”  
  
“My Lady,” Jittney says, sounding both awed and humbled. When he straightens, there are tears in his eyes and, oddly, hope. The Lady Yavanna’s smile turns almost tender when Her gaze falls on him.  
  
“Jittney Rolla,” She says, laughter in Her voice. In _ Sig’s _voice. Sildan shakes his head and finds himself leaning against Jittney for stability. “My dearest Jittney. Or do you prefer_ Peregrine _?” She asks playfully, but tilting Her head at a genuinely curious angle. “As I recall, that was, of all your lives, the one that suited you most.”  
  
Jittney blinks in confusion, then his dark face lights up in sudden understanding and wonder. “Oh!” he says, the tears that had been in his eyes falling. “Oh, my Lady!” He wipes his cheeks, laughing bemusedly. “I had sought to remember it all, but I could not. It was as if there was a wall in my mind. I could only remember being Jittney Rolla. But I knew there was more—more to me, more to my memories. Oh, my Lady . . . is _ he _here, too? For_ he _was the reason I sought those memories. Ever has he been the most important thing in my life. In_ all _my lives. As Jittney, I knew, without knowing what, that there was always something—some_ one _—missing.”  
  
Sildan gapes in shock. For all while Jittney had been speaking, his accent—his very _ voice _had been changing, going up an octave and gaining a northern brogue the likes of which Sildan has rarely heard. And his eyes . . . slowly the color had leached from them, till they were a light, merry, cornflower blue.  
  
Side-stepping away from his changing friend, Sildan glances at the Lady, who _ hasn’t _changed, but still looks like his cousin Sigrid.  
  
“Meriadoc will be along shortly,” She says softly, Her greeny-gold eyes taking on a far-seeing look. “Even now, the battle in which he fights draws to its inevitable conclusion. He will be felled by a spear, and die on the field of battle.”  
  
“Oh,” Jittney says, more tears rolling down his face. “My poor Merry . . . I wasn’t there to look after him. . . .”  
  
“But you are here, _ now _, Peregrine. And that is what matters. For he will need tending to when first he arrives here. May I count on_ you _to do that tending?” the Lady asks, and Jittney straightens, blinking away his tears.  
  
“Of course you may, my Lady!”  
  
“It is well, then.” With a grin, the Lady turns Her gaze to Sildan. “Now, what to do with you, my dear young Sildan?”  
  
Fighting not to quail under the consideration of a God, Sildan squares his shoulders. “You said that . . . that it was _ my _decision whether or not to live or die?”  
  
Nodding, the Lady spreads Her hands. “And truly, it is. To be honest, you should not even be here in the Fields, for you have not yet chosen whether to live a mortal life, like your father’s kin, or an immortal life, like your mother’s. Until you make that choice, you may not sojourn in the Fields. Nor may you travel to the Undying Lands.”  
  
“I . . . I don’t understand,” Sildan whispers, certain he’s heard wrong. “I can _ choose _whether or not to live_ forever _?”  
  
Nodding again, the Lady sighs. “Yes. However, it is not a choice to be made lightly. There are, of course, drawbacks to each choice, and—”  
  
“_ MERRY! _” Jittney suddenly calls from Sildan’s side and, startled once more, Sildan turns to look first at his friend, then in the direction his friend is staring.  
  
Coming down a gentle hill from back the way they’d come, looking battered and weary, dressed in Harad-style armor, his face wrapped in the traditional black scarf, a tall warrior approaches, large, curved scimitar in hand.  
  
Jittney hurries toward the weary warrior, who raises his scimitar and shouts in a dialect of Harad that Sildan can mostly understand. But he doesn’t need to be a languages scholar to understand the import of what the soldier says:  
  
“Stay back, I warn you!”  
  
“Merry! It’s _ me _! Do you not remember?” Jittney says, laughing as he gets closer to the warrior, who is backing away as if frightened, despite his harsh warning and raised scimitar. Suddenly noticing this, Jittney slows his approach and extends his hands in the traditional Harad greeting of friendship. “Merry, it’s me! It’s_ Pip _!”  
  
“Who are you?” the warrior demands, raising his sword slightly. “Where am I?”  
  
“You’re in the Evergreen Fields of Lady Yavanna,” Jittney says in flawless Harad that’s closer to what Sigrid taught Sildan, than it is to what the warrior had said. And there’s a warm smile in Jittney’s voice. One that, it seems, calms the warrior some, for he lowers his scimitar just slightly. “The Evergreen Fields, and I’m Pip. _ Your _Pip.”  
  
The warrior reaches up slowly and removes the portion of his head scarf that covers the lower half of his face. He’s a handsome man, in a craggy, hard-bitten way, with scars lining his almond-colored face. His dark, dark eyes, smudged with kohl, are steady on Jittney.  
  
“I . . . I know you,” he says uncertainly, those dark eyes narrowing. “Your _ eyes _. . . .”  
  
“It’s _ me _, Merry!” Jittney insists excitedly. “Look into my eyes and remember . . . remember the Party Tree and fireworks, good food and even better friends. And the_ Green Dragon’s ale _. . . .”  
  
Jittney sighs and falls silent, while the warrior puts his free hand to his forehead as if fighting a headache. His face scrunches in frustration for most of a minute before clearing, that frustration given over to wonder.  
  
“Fireworks, yes . . . in the . . . shape of a dragon. And we set it off,” the warrior says absently, in perfect Westron, with a northern brogue vaguely similar to Jittney’s. He’s almost—_ almost _—smiling. It sits strangely on the harsh planes of his austere face. But Jittney dares to move a few steps closer. And another few steps. Until he is a mere yard from the warrior, who’s closed his eyes and is swaying slightly. “And there was a wizard . . . he’d made the fireworks special for Uncle Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday party . . . and he made us wash dishes for ruining his big finale.”  
  
“Oh, yes. Oh, Merry!” Jittney laughs, but it’s a tear-logged one. He closes the distance between himself and the warrior, who opens his eyes, the scimitar falling from his hand. It hits the grass with a muffled _ thump _, and promptly disappears. Simply fades into transparency, till all Sildan can see is the grass where it had fallen.  
  
Meanwhile, Jittney has launched himself at the warrior, who catches him up in an embrace that is both tentative and surprised, as if he’s just been tossed something so precious, he dares not to hold it too tight, for fear of it breaking.  
  
Or disappearing on him.  
  
“Oh, Merry,” Jittney keeps saying, hugging the warrior tight, arms and legs wound around the tall soldier like a spider-monkey. “This last life was so long and empty without you! Never leave me again!”  
  
“I . . . I won’t,” the warrior says, finally hugging Jittney back as tight as he, himself, is being hugged. He turns in a slow circle with the smaller man in his arms. “You’re . . . my best friend . . . _ my Pip _.”  
  
“Yes. Always yours,” Jittney murmurs, laughing again and leaning back to look at the warrior, who smiles again. This time, it seems less strange on his face. “Bloody_ hell _, Merry! You’re a sight!”  
  
The warrior—_ Merry _—laughs, too, low and rumbling. “And so are you, Pip. Still shorter than me, though,” he replies saucily, that smile turning into a grin.  
  
Jittney cups Merry’s face in his hands as the warrior carefully sets him down, and searches his dark eyes.  
  
“Shorter, yes, but much cleverer. A person of intelligence, no matter what life I’m in,” he says finally. Merry’s smile widens and he leans his head down till his forehead is touching Jittney’s.  
  
“I . . . I love you, Pip. I don’t want us to go another lifetime without me saying it and you knowing it.”  
  
“I love you, too, Merry! Of course I do! I always have! You’re my best friend!”  
  
“No, Pip . . . I mean I _ love _you. I am_ in love _with you.” Merry searches Jittney’s eyes, though he must not be able to make out much, from such a close distance. Jittney leans back, clearly shocked.  
  
“Me? You love . . . _ me _?”  
  
Merry nods once, a pained look crossing his face, as if he expects to be laughed at or dismissed. “Yes.”  
  
Jittney wipes at his eyes. “Oh, Merry,” he breathes quietly, hiding his face in the warrior’s chest. Merry simply holds him tightly, stroking Jittney’s tightly curled hair. Jittney’s shoulders shake as he weeps and Merry looks fairly alarmed, now.  
  
“Curse my fool tongue—it’ll be alright, Pippin, I promise. I promise. I’m sorry. I’ll _ make _it alright. Just tell me what to do,” he says in a whispered rush, and Jittney laughs that tear-logged laugh once more. He finally looks up at Merry and says:  
  
“Well, for starters, you can kiss me like you mean it, Mr. Brandybuck. I’ve waited a _ lot _of lifetimes for you to do so, you know.”  
  
Merry blinks. Then blinks again. Then grins, holding Jittney tighter and flush against him. Jittney’s arms wind around Merry’s neck and he bounces up on his toes to meet Merry halfway.  
  
The moment their lips touch, a white light begins to emanate from them both, quickly growing so bright, Sildan must look away. The light intensifies until even closing his eyes whilst looking away does nothing to mitigate it, and then—with a sudden clap, the light is gone.  
  
As are, Sildan discovers when he opens his eyes, Jittney and Merry.  
  
He looks around him and sees nothing and no one—except, of course, the Lady Yavanna, who is smiling quite contentedly.  
  
“What happened to them?” Sildan asks, and She grins.  
  
“They’ve gone on to their next lives, of course. _ This time _, and nearly every time hereafter, they will be living those lives_ together _.”  
  
Sildan smiles, and in his heart, he wishes Jittney—_ Pippin _—and Merry well in their next lives.  
  
But then he’s feeling a familiar melancholy. For that very love is what he thought he’d had with Sigrid. Or he’d _ hoped _to have. But clearly she isn’t the right person. Not if she’s given up everything to be with Durin VII.  
  
And yet, if not Sigrid, then whom? No one knows him better, nor cares more about him. No one makes him laugh so hard nor does he commiserate as easily or empathetically with anyone as he does with Sigrid. Is it so strange, then, that he’d wanted to marry her?  
  
“My Lady,” Sildan says, meeting Her greeny-gold eyes. She bends a gentle look upon him that makes him suddenly miss the mother he’s never known. “My Lady, if I stay here, choose a mortal life, and stay here, will I find the person I’m meant to love till time and times are done? Will I find my Merry here, in your Fields?”  
  
Lady Yavanna’s look softens even more. “The one you seek is not in the Fields, Sildan, but back on Arda.”  
  
Sildan gapes, his hopes sky-rocketing. “Is it . . . is it Sigrid, after all?”  
  
The Lady Yavanna’s smile turns sad. “You know she is not the one, Sildan, and no amount of wishing will make her the one you seek. In your heart of hearts . . . you know this.”  
  
Looking down to hide the tears in his eyes, Sildan nods. He knows. “But she knows me _ so well _. Knows me, and loves me, anyway. And I love her. I have_ always _loved her.”  
  
“Yes, you have, but you have confused the affections of a beloved sister, for those of a lover. You are lonely, and fear that you may never be loved. You fear abandonment—with good reason—and have hitched your wagon to the first star to shine on you. But always have you known that Sigrid was not the one. And you have denied this with all of your being. Even now, even with that knowledge firmly in your mind and heart, you would fight it.” The Lady steps toward him and puts a hand on his shoulder. Her touch is at once startling and comforting. It energizes him even as it soothes him.  
  
And without warning, he finds himself sobbing, and seeking the haven of Her arms.  
  
“Oh, Sildan,” She murmurs, holding him as he weeps. Her arms are as kind and loving as Aunt Ianthe’s have ever been . . . only multiplied a thousand-fold. That only makes him sob harder.  
  
“I am _ alone _, my Lady. I have_ always _been alone. Never have I known the love of my father, and even my own mother did not want me . . . will it always be like this? Will I always be left out? Abandoned? Forgotten? Passed over?”  
  
“Of course not, my dear!” The Lady laughs, rich and low. “It only seems that way now! But I promise you . . . it _ will _get better.”  
  
It hurts to hear those words because, after losing Sigrid, and the life he thought he would have with her, _ hope hurts _. “Will I never be loved? By anyone?”  
  
The Lady leans back to look at him, Her greeny-gold eyes wise and infinitely kind. “My child, as long as there is life, there is love. As long as there is _ hope _there is love.”  
  
“But all my hopes have been dashed!”  
  
“Have they?”  
  
At the Lady’s gentle interrogative, Sildan sniffs and wipes his face, thinking her question over with the focus it deserves.  
  
Sigrid is not his love, true . . . but it is a wide world, filled with people worthy of love and waiting to _ give _love. Is it not possible that at least_ one _of them would love him?_ Could _love him?  
  
Is that hope not enough for which to go on living? Even if it hurts more than he thinks he can bear, in some moments?  
  
Sniffling again, Sildan wipes his nose. “It _ is _a wide world, my Lady. Filled with so many people. If I wish to find love, where am I to even begin?”  
  
“Why, begin with friendship, of course.” Her dark eyes laugh at him, but not unkindly. “Even now, you are among friends.”  
  
Sildan blinks. “But I thought—I thought I was not meant for the Fields, yet?”  
  
Another laugh, and She reaches up to caress his cheek. “I mean on Arda, my dear child. You are among friends who would see you live and thrive.”  
  
“I . . . I don’t understand.” Sildan shivers under Her touch. “Is my body not lying dead in a field somewhere between the Greenwood and the great road?”  
  
Her smile is amused and tender. “As we speak, your body is in the Halls of the Elven-King. Who, himself, along with his daughter, Lady Nimiel, tend to your wounds and attempt to revive you from your death-like slumber.”  
  
Eyes widening, SIldan’s hand comes up to cover his mouth. “I made it to the Greenwood?”  
  
“To within yards of it, yes. And the elves rescued you from certain death.”  
  
In that moment, Sildan remembers his yearning—almost as old as he is—to seek out his mother’s kin. To learn about the other half of himself. This same yearning had given him meaning when he’d thought all meaning fled with Sigrid.  
  
“Is . . . is my mother among them? Is she an elf of the Greenwood?” he asks, without knowing he means to ask it, and meeting the Lady’s kind, greeny-gold eyes. She raises one dark eyebrow.  
  
“That _ is _the question of the hour, is it not?”  
  
Gaping once more, Sildan struggles to find words. “What must I do to find out? To find _ her _?”  
  
“_ Would you _then, continue the quest for your mother? And the quest for the one who will love you and accept your love in return?”  
  
Sildan swallows, and looks at the Fields around him, tranquil and welcoming . . . but ultimately not what he wants. At least, not yet. For there are questions he seeks answers to, and . . . possibly _ love _waiting for him to find it, too.  
  
Plus, when all is said and done, Sildan wants to _ live _—wants_ his _life back. He does not seek the oblivion of the Fields, or of rebirth.  
  
It is, as Jittney had said, not his time.  
  
He nods, swallowing his fears. “I would, my Lady.”  
  
She grins, wide and winning, and places Her hand over his heart. “Why, then, all you must do is open your eyes.”  
  
Confused and frowning, Sildan opens his mouth, questions on his lips, but once more, that white light appears, this time emanating not from Jittney and Merry, who are long gone, but from Sildan, himself. Rather, from where the Lady’s hand rests over his heart. In seconds, it’s so bright, he cannot keep his eyes open. And yet, squinching them shut does little to keep it out.  
  
“My Lady—” he starts to say, reaching up to shield his eyes with his arm.  
  
“_ Open your eyes, Sildan _,” a voice says, and before Sildan can shake his head_ no _, there’s a great turning over in his chest . . . a_ thud _, slushy and slow, momentous and portentous.  
  
It hurts quite a bit, and Sildan falls to his knees with a cry.  
  
The _ thud _happens again, like a fist pounding in his chest while simultaneously clenching and releasing.  
  
The third such _ thud _sees Sildan sprawled on his back in the cool, dew-soaked grass, clutching at his chest and trying to scream as the_ thud _s continue, coming faster, now, and harder. Suddenly, his right shoulder hurts, as well as his chest . . . high on the left side and quite irrespective of the_ thuds _.  
  
And that white light is so bright, now, that Sildan may as well not have eyelids, for all the good they’re doing. In extremis, his body strung as tight as a lyre, Sildan arches up off the ground, screaming.  
  
“_ Sildan, _” a deep, rich, somehow_ familiar _voice commands. “_ Open your  _eyes!”  
  
Unable to disobey this voice—not merely its tone of command, but the implicit trust that he feels for its speaker—Sildan opens his eyes—_  
  


*

  
  
Maethenwil and Prince Malthengon are left to pace and wait mere minutes after the king has gone into the boy’s sickroom, before the screaming starts.  
  
It is the wild howl of a lonely, wounded animal, high and keening, and upon hearing it, Maethilwen and Malthengon both draw their weapons and are rushing the door instantly, the command of their king forgotten in the heat of the moment.  
  
Maethilwen reaches the door first and kicks it open, daggers drawn. Malthengon is but half a moment behind her, his sword also drawn. As they enter, the scream cuts off.  
  
What Maethilwen sees is, for the tenor of that awful yowling, not what she expects:  
  
The Lady Nimiel is laying on the floor, barely conscious and moving sluggishly, her platinum hair covering her face. On the bed, sits the king and, laying half in the king’s lap, is the boy, Sildan, also barely conscious and wan-looking. His slowly rolling eyes have the shine of a fever about them, but they are  _open_.  
  
Maethilwen takes this in within a split second, then she’s going to the Lady Nimiel’s aid, her heart in her throat.  
  


*

  
  
“Grandfather—” Malthengon begins, his eyes trying to be everywhere at once. They go, first, to his fallen mother, who is moaning in Maethilwen’s careful arms as the other woman gently picks her up and stands.  
  
“I am here, my lady,” she murmurs so tenderly, that Malthengon looks away, feeling as if he’s eavesdropping on some private moment. Maethilwen carries his mother past him and out of the room, Lady Nimiel stirring and moaning softly all the way.  
  
Malthengon’s grandfather, however, sits with the boy in his arms and lap, staring down at him with a concerned and almost pained frown. There is such an intensity of feeling in his silver eyes that Malthengon feels that interpreting such a look would be tantamount to spying.  
  
The boy, himself, is trying to speak, his eyes squinting as he looks up at Thranduil. He reaches up painstakingly slowly, with his right arm, wincing and groaning as he does so, but not stopping till his fingers brush Thranduil’s cheek.  
  
“Y-you . . . you found me. . . .” he croaks out, licking dry, chapped lips, and smiling a little before his eyes roll backward and he sags in Thranduil’s embrace. His hand drops back to his side limply and Thranduil’s frown deepens. He then reaches up to caress the boy’s cheek as if touching the most fragile bird ever to light upon a branch.  
  
“Yes, Sildan . . . I found you,” Thranduil murmurs somberly, brushing the boy’s short, fiery hair off his damp forehead. “At last . . . I’ve found you.”  
  


TBC


	5. "Ode to a Woodland Daughter" 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Malthengon is mystified by his grandfather's actions. Maethilwen is mystified by Nimiel's words. And Sildan . . . wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: *Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships  
> **Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships

Even when it becomes clear that the boy— _Sildan_ —had passed out, Malthengon’s grandfather continues to hold him, and tenderly caress his cheek. Thranduil’s gaze, intent and intense as it is on the boy, is somehow, simultaneously, as tender as his touch.  
  
“He was right, after all, it seems. As ever he is,” Thranduil murmurs lowly, his voice torn between rue and wonder. “He said you would return to us, no matter how far hence you were sent . . . and return to us, you have. And now that I’ve seen you . . . now that I’ve seen you, Sildan, to know that I’ve come so close to  _losing_  you. . . .”  
  
Thranduil closes his eyes as he trails off, and to Malthengon’s surprise, tears leak out from under his closed lids, to dampen silver eyelashes and pale cheeks.  
  
“Grandfather?” Malthengon ventures, stepping closer to bed, boy, and grandfather. Thranduil doesn’t move, but to hold the boy closer. “Grandfather, what—”  
  
“Captain Maethilwen said that you and she found him just outside the bounds of our lands?”  
  
“Yes, sire.” Malthengon bows low. “He had two wounds, both made by arrows.”  
  
“Indeed?” Thranduil’s mouth twitches downward, the closest to a frown Malthengon has ever seen his grandfather wear. And if Thranduil’s angry enough to  _nearly_  frown, he must be quite  _angry_. Indeed.  
  
“Yes, my king.”  
  
That anger-twitch again, then Thranduil’s opening his eyes and blinking away tears that have already begun to dry. “And where, pray tell, are the arrows that felled him?”  
  
Licking his lips, Malthengon looks around the sickroom and spots the very objects sitting on a table, on a now-bloody blue cloth. Of human-make, those arrows—shoddily made, but apparently serviceable enough.  
  
Thranduil’s gaze follows Malthengon’s to the arrows, and they narrow, that almost-frown becoming a momentary grimace of rage that’s gone as soon as it appears. Before Malthengon can even register that such a look has crossed his grandfather’s normally stoic face, Thranduil has carefully, gently disengaged from the boy—who sighs unhappily in his healing slumber—laying him down amongst the pillows and pulling the coverlet up over him with a care Malthengon has never seen him show  _anything_.  
  
For a moment, that tender look is back in his eyes—in the weight of his gaze and the very stillness of his face: like a minutely shivering crystal under the assault of a high-C—as he caresses the boy’s sallow cheek once more.  
  
Then he’s standing up and skirting the front of the bed to stride across the room, to the table where lay the arrows.  
  
He leans over them grimly, reaching out as if to touch the whole one—for the other had been broken, no doubt while Malthengon’s mother tried to retrieve it—before closing his long-fingered hand. Then he’s gingerly wrapping the arrows up in the stained blue cloth.  
  
“You will take this to Aduacharn,” he says softly, but with a tone of command that causes Malthengon to bow again. Then he’s accepting the grisly bundle Thranduil hands out to him. “I want to know where these arrows originated, and by whom they were shot. I want to know  _why_. I want to know this as soon as possible. And I want the miscreants who shot this boy . . . brought to me.”  
  
Shocked, Malthengon can only stare for moments as his grandfather turns away, back to bed and boy.  
  
“You . . . you mean to have outsiders brought into Eryn Lasgalen?”  
  
“That was my command, was it not?”  
  
Cold-iron tone as Thranduil pauses at the boy’s bedside, his head canted slightly to the left. Malthengon swallows and hastily bows again, though Thranduil can’t see it, and clutching the bundle of blood and arrows, turns to go.  
  
He’s half out the door when, greatly daring, he glances back into the room, meaning to ask his grandfather who this boy  _is_ , that Thranduil is breaking his own rules about allowing outsiders into the forest.  
  
But the sight that greets him when he turns back to speak—Thranduil, kneeling at the boy’s bedside, one pale, dirty, bloody hand clasped between his own . . . the mighty elven-king’s eyes are closed once more, and he brings the boy’s hand to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss to the scraped fingers—floors him. Drives the very words from his lips.  
  
And so he doesn’t know how long he’s been standing there, observing this never before guessed at, let alone  _seen_  side of his grandfather, when Thranduil murmurs: “Malthengon?”  
  
“Yes, grandfather?”  
  
“Do as I have bid you.  _Go_.”  
  
And with a fourth and final bow, Malthengon absents himself, his mind still a-whirl.  
  


*

  
  
“I’m alright, Maethilwen. . . .”  
  
Lightly booting open the doors to Lady Nimiel’s room, Maethilwen snorts and enters the receiving room, kicking the door shut behind her. Without further pause, she strides to Lady Nimiel’s bedroom, the aforementioned lady struggling weakly, half-heartedly in her arms.  
  
“If you’ll pardon me for gainsaying you, my lady, you’re  _not_. You were barely conscious mere moments ago. You’re  _still_  barely conscious.”  
  
“Really, I’m fine, just a little . . . disoriented,” the lady allows as they enter her bedroom. A lamp is burning lowly, and Maethilwen lets its light guide her to Lady Nimiel’s bed, which the lady, herself, had long ago pushed into a far corner to make more room for her herbal racks and drying tables.  
  
With great care, she places the lady in bed, noting that despite their weakness, Lady Nimiel’s arms remained looped around and clutching at Maethilwen’s neck. Even as the suddenly uncomfortable captain of the watch seeks to stand, the lady clutches tighter, her fluttering silver eyes struggling to focus in the dim lighting.  
  
“The boy will live,” she says softly, smiling a little, and Maethilwen returns it certainly, proudly.  
  
“My lady’s skills as a healer are formidable.”  
  
Lady Nimiel laughs weakly. “’Twas not my skill that called him back from the Lady Yavanna’s Fields, but—“ and here the lady falls silent for several long moments before going on. “It was not Nimiel of Eryn Lasgalen whose voice called Sildan Bowman back from death.”  
  
Frowning, Maethilwen shakes her head in confusion. “If not yours, then whose?”  
  
Lady Nimiel raises her dark eyebrows and Maethilwen suddenly recalls that the lady had not been the only person in the room when Sildan had awoken.  
  
“King Thranduil?” Maethilwen couldn’t be more surprised if Lady Nimiel had claimed it was  _Maethilwen_ ’s voice that had brought him back. “But  _how_  did he call Sildan back—and why did it  _work_?”  
  
Sighing thoughtfully, the lady frowns. “I do not know. The power to heal serious infirmities is given the kings and queens of Arda, since time immemorial. Some monarchs hone this talent, some do not.” Lady Nimiel licks her lips and Maethilwen would go to get her water, but the lady’s grasp of her has grown tenacious, indeed. “My father has always spoken of himself as a middling healer. Yet tonight . . . tonight, I saw otherwise. I saw him reach beyond the veil of death, into a place I could not go, and reclaim Sildan from the Evergreen Fields.”  
  
Maethilwen shakes her head again. “Such power is beyond that of even the greatest king or queen, I would think. It is the power of a God,” she says with soft reverence.  
  
“There is only one power I know of which can rival that of the Gods, Maethilwen, and if I didn’t know otherwise—” Lady Nimiel shakes her own head, now.  
  
“What is this power you speak of, my lady?” Maethilwen asks, uncertain she wants to know, but worried for Sildan. Worried that he might find himself under some alien power’s control. She can easily think up at least nine relatively recent instances where  _that_  sort of control over another was to the detriment of all.  
  
But Lady Nimiel smiles gently, her still-pale lips curving like the most perfect bow, her eyes dancing like starlight. “The same power with which the souls of the unborn are pulled from beyond that shadowy veil. The power that keeps us going, many miles beyond the point we should have long since given up. The power that keeps one by the side of another with or without the promise of even eventual reciprocal affection . . . the greatest power for good in the world, Maethilwen. . . .”  
  
Now thoroughly lost—but relieved that whatever this power is, it isn’t, apparently, a bad one—Maethilwen blinks. “I . . . I don’t follow, my lady,” she says apologetically, then adds: “But if you like, I can fetch you some cool water, and some fruit to revive you.”  
  
“Maethilwen,” Lady Nimiel murmurs, smiling a little. And: “My brave, practical captain of the watch . . . you always take such excellent care of me, whether I am in need of it, or not.”  
  
“If I may say, my lady is  _often_  in need of caring for,” Maethilwen responds tartly, then blushes. “And Lord Caladhael has charged me with your care. It is a duty I do not take lightly.”  
  
Lady Nimiel’s fluttering lids open wide, now—for a few seconds, anyway—shining and somber. “ _Duty_ , then . . . is that all that keeps you by my side, even in your free time? Even after a peaceful span since the Last Great War? Even when the one who charged you with my care has gone to his rest over a century ago?”  
  
Maethilwen swallows, and looks away from the lady’s intent, silver eyes. “My lady . . . Lord Caladhael honored me more than I can express by charging me with the care of his beloved wife and son. I would never toss away such an honor simply because the  _great_  wars have passed. And simply because, perhaps, as you say, you are sometimes _not_  in need of my care. My lady— _Nimiel_ —” Maethilwen’s brow furrows and she meets the lady’s wide silver eyes. “My lady, I am yours, whether or not you need me, whether or not you even  _want_  me . . . my life is ever yours to command.”  
  
Lady Nimiel blinks, her shining eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Do you not know, Maethilwen—have you  _not known_  that as you are mine, I am yours—beyond wanting or needing or commanding? Do you not understand what Caladhael  _did_  when he charged you with my safety, and Malthengon’s?” Lady Nimiel’s arms slide from around Maethilwen’s neck, but her hands, clammy and shaking, cup Maethilwen’s face gently. The tears in her eyes spill over and she bites her lip, just the way she did when they were children, and played together in the safety of the trees at the heart of Eryn Lasgalen. “He gave us to you to guard and protect, yes, but he also gave us to you to love and have joy of. With his last breath, he gave you his family to make your own. So what . . . what are you  _waiting_  for?”  
  
And now, Maethilwen would look away again, but she cannot. Though she dares not read the emotions that lay so plainly in Lady Nimiel’s eyes, either.  
  
“My lady,” she begins, not knowing what she will say after that. Lady Nimiel blinks and more tears roll down her pale, wan face.  
  
“Or will it be like this till we sail to the Undying Lands? Me placing my heart before you on a silver platter and you not seeing— _refusing_  to see what’s been in front of you since we were children together, and had no name for love?”  
  
Swallowing again, Maethilwen finally tears her eyes away from the lady’s. “You . . . you’ve had a rather harrowing evening, my lady. You must let me get you settled in, so that you may rest before you say something else that’s. . . .”  
  
“Entirely true?” The lady’s hands fall away from Maethilwen’s face and Maethilwen sighs, closing her eyes and bowing her head. Long minutes of silence tick between them, loud and dinning, before Maethilwen finds it within her to speak.  
  
“What do you wish of me, Nimiel? Tell me, and I’ll do my best to give it to you. Not because it is my duty, but because . . . because I  _love_  you,” she says quietly, at last, and to no response.  
  
When she risks a look up, Lady Nimiel is fast asleep, her face turned slightly to the side, but still creased with lines of care.  
  
Sighing again, Maethilwen watches Lady Nimiel sleep for as long as she dares before claiming one of the lady’s delicate hands and kissing it, feather-light. . . .  
  
Then she’s tucking Lady Nimiel into her bed with tender care that, had she been awake, the lady would likely have protested.  
  
Leaving the lamp burning low, Maethilwen makes her silent way out of the sleeping lady’s quarters, her heart and mind a tumult of emotion.  
  
But she is long used to burying desire under duty—so used to it, she wouldn’t begin to know how to stop, even if she wanted to—and does so with a soldier’s alacrity and lack of melodrama.  
  
By the time she closes the lady’s door behind her, her face and demeanor are once more as impassive as the stone around her.  
  


*

  
  
Minutes later, when Maethilwen lets herself back into Sildan’s sickroom, heart and mind still unsettled, it is to find that the sleeping boy is not alone.  
  
“My king!” she starts, shutting the door behind her. Thranduil, standing by the room’s small, lone window, arms crossed, does not look away from whatever has captured his gaze.  
  
“How is Lady Nimiel?” he asks softly. “Has she recovered from her swoon?”  
  
Nodding stolidly, Maethilwen rolls her shoulders. “Somewhat, my king. She awoke, spoke for a little then fell asleep.”  
  
Now, Thranduil inclines his head toward Maethilwen, turning that silver gaze—so like and so  _un_ like Lady Nimiel’s—to her. “And of what did she speak before slumber claimed her?”  
  
Maethilwen’s gaze slides away, to the window, then to Sildan. He looks as if he’s been propped up amongst the pillows and tucked in properly. He also appears to be less wan and deathly-pale as he had been just minutes ago.  
  
“She . . . spoke of Lord Caladhael and of Malthengon, and of her childhood.” Maethilwen bites back a sigh. “And she spoke of a power that brought Sildan back from the dead. That had the strength to reach beyond death and reclaim him for this world. But she did not tell me what this power was before she fell asleep.”  
  
“Hmm,” is Thranduil’s reply, and he returns his gaze to the window. “Ever has my daughter waxed poetical about such things. I suppose now would be no different. Well.” And with that, Thranduil turns away from the window decisively. He strides toward the door, frowning, and when he draws even with Maethilwen, he pauses to speak, his expression somewhat torn between concern and a defensiveness Maethilwen has never seen him display.  
  
“You and Malthengon are relieved from duties for the next few days—I will inform Aduacharn—and I want one or the other of you here to keep an eye on him while he recovers. I . . . I do not wish him to wake up alone.”  
  
Glancing at the boy in the bed—he seems so fragile, so small . . . indeed, he’s probably only a few inches taller than Maethilwen, which isn’t saying much—she nods and bows. “It will be as you command, my lord.”  
  
Thranduil nods once, also looking back at the boy in the bed, his expression at once determined and worried. “Should he wish it, Captain, he shall have the succor for which you have plead so . . . eloquently. Should Sildan wish it, he will have a home in Eryn Lasgalen.”  
  
Feeling a relief so great it’s practically elation sweep over her, Maethilwen doesn’t trust herself to speak, only to bow, and repeat: “Yes, my king.”  
  
When she bobs back up, Thranduil’s intent gaze is waiting for her, searching and piercing. “And when he wakes, you and Malthengon are to answer any questions he asks, with regard to anything and anyone . . . save his origins.”  
  
Maethilwen bites back a frown and bows again, ignoring the pang in her heart as well as the churning in her gut. “As you say, my king. However . . . what shall I tell him when he asks why I will not answer  _those_  questions?”  
  
Thranduil smiles a little, rueful and wistful all at once, and glances back at the boy thoughtfully before answering.  
  


*

  
  
_He struggles, quite literally, to wakefulness.  
  
It's like swimming up from the bottom of the Lake, all darkness, but with the sense that if one simply keeps moving up, one will finally encounter light. So he moves up—swims up from the depths of his dreams and nightmares, fighting against the very powerful urge to simply stay under, where everything is rather awful, but at least he's familiar with the flavor.  
  
But then he remembers the bright silver eyes and strong arms waiting for him in the light, and the urge to remain is obliterated by the bone-deep _need _to be wherever those eyes and those arms are. He can almost see them, for they are so close by, so close. . . .  
  
He moves toward them, toward the shimmer of those eyes, which are occasionally shuttered by pale lids and paler lashes. He opens his mouth to call out _wait! _Reaches with all his being for those arms, hoping that once again, they’ll catch him and hold him. But they drift ever farther away, farther_ up _, leaving him in the murk of down-below.  
  
So, calling on the talent and drive that have made him the strongest swimmer in a family of strong swimmers, Sildan Bowman pushes his way upward, two words on his lips the whole way—_  
  


*

  
  
“Wait . . . please. . . .”  
  
Maethilwen starts awake from a light, thin doze to sunlight slanting in the window and soft moans coming from the bed.  
  
Blinking, she places her book on Sildan’s night table, careful not to upset the pitcher of cool water sitting there. Then she stands, turning to the window behind the chair to draw the curtains and filter the green-gold sunlight. By the time she has the curtains adjusted to her satisfaction, Sildan is trying to sit up, his eyes barely open, as his weak arms tremble under even his slight weight.  
  
“You must rest, Sildan,” Maethilwen says soothingly, putting her hands on his shoulders and pressing him back to the bed. He doesn’t give up trying to sit up, but jarring his own wounds makes his struggles that much weaker, and he groans, his startling and familiar eyes rolling up under half-closed lids. His breathing is light and quick, winded, and his entire body is shaking. When he finally stops trying to sit up, Maethilwen pulls the coverlet back up over him.  
  
“Try and rest,” she says again, putting her hand to his forehead. It’s still cool and dry. In the days since his arrival, Sildan’s fevers have come and gone several times, though after the last one had broken this past night, Lady Nimiel has assured them all that he is finally on the mend.  
  
Greener-than-green eyes open again and meet Maethilwen’s with fuzzy focus.  
  
“Am I d-dead? Are . . . are you my Mum?” he croaks out desperately in Westron, settling back into the pillows. Maethilwen’s eyes widen and she looks away from Sildan, busying herself with pouring him a cup of water and blinking away the tears in her eyes.  
  
“You’ve been ill for some time, lad, but you’re healing nicely now,” she says briskly, brightly, also in Westron. “You’re safe, now, in Eryn Lasgalen.”  
  
Sildan gives her another desperate look, this one equally confused. When she holds the cup to his lips, he takes a few sips—initially for politeness’ sake, that much is clear—but those sips turn into gulps as he realizes how parched his throat is.  
  
When half the cup is emptied, Maethilwen holds the cup away. “Slowly, or you’ll make yourself sick.”  
  
“Thank you,” he says gratefully, his voice no longer a harsh croak, but a rich, low, sonorous burr, hinting very strongly at his Dale-ish origins. His round, wide eyes take in Maethilwen, then the room, then Maethilwen once more, before he closes them briefly.  
  
“If I may ask . . . where is this . . .  _Eryn Lasgalen_  in which I find myself, Madam?” he asks without much interest, his eyes squinting as he looks to the curtained window.  
  
“You are in, as it is called by men, the Greenwood.”  
  
Sildan’s eyes widen as they meet Maethilwen’s again. “I . . . I made it? But I was so far, and—and I was wounded—” he touches his bandaged chest and shoulder as if just remembering his injuries. When he looks up at Maethilwen again, he’s quite agog. “I thought—I was  _certain_  I would die in the grasslands between the road and the Greenwood. Those bandits ambushed us, and Mr. Rolla, he—he didn’t make it.” He closes his eyes on sudden tears. “It was my fault. He only wanted to help. He thought it was maybe another peddler who needed aid. But I knew—I  _knew_  it was something bad. But I didn’t try hard enough to talk him out of it. We could’ve gone off the road and around, and none of this would ever have happened.”  
  
Covering his face, Sildan begins to weep, and Maethilwen, at a loss as to what to do next, puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes.  
  
“It was not your fault, Sildan. The fault lay only with those who would take advantage of and harm those who seek only to help the helpless,” she says gently, sitting on the bed just in time to get Sildan’s arms wrapped around her neck. With a burst of sudden strength, he’s holding onto her tight, shaking and weeping even harder. “Rest assured, this attack will not go unavenged.”  
  
“H-he doesn’t even have a f-family I could give his sword to! I—oh, Yavanna, save me, I  _lost his sword!_ ” Sildan sits back, his wide eyes shocked and horrified. “I took it with me when I escaped, but I must’ve lost it somewhere between the road and the Greenwood! Oh, gods,  _no_!”  
  
This brings on a fresh bout of weeping and face-hiding. Maethilwen pries Sildan’s hands away from his face and cups it in her own hands, tilting it up when he would look down.  
  
“If, by his sword, you mean the Blood-Letter, then you have lost nothing, Sildan,” she says, smiling through tears of her own. She points across the room, at the opposing wall and he follows her gaze. There, upon a waist-high weapons rack, rests none other than the Blood-Letter, shining and cool—seemingly ablaze in a slant of mid-morning sunshine. “When Prince Malthengon and I found you just beyond the bounds of the Greenwood, the Blood-Letter was in your hand. And you would not let go of it through all the hours of riding it took to get here.”  
  
“I . . . I didn’t lose it?” Sildan sniffles, wiping his face and smiling. Maethilwen’s arm around him tightens.  
  
“No, you did not.”  
  
“Oh,” Sildan says softly, laughing a little, then throwing back the coverlet and laboriously bringing his legs out from under it. He tries to sit up again, but this time, Maethilwen is ready for him.  
  
“If you wish the sword, I will bring it to you. You’re still weak and not to be up and about for at least another day.” She holds him down by the shoulders until he sighs and nods, and stops trying to get up. Then she swings his legs back up into bed and tucks him back in. “Though you needn’t carry a sword here, in the heart of Eryn Lasgalen. You are quite safe.”  
  
“I . . . I believe you, Madam,” Sildan says earnestly, his wide eyes steady on Maethilwen’s face as he swallows. “But at least with Blood-Letter close by, it feels as if . . . Mr. Rolla’s still here, you know? Like I’m . . . not alone.”  
  
“You’re  _not_  alone, Sildan.” Maethilwen promises, standing. Sildan smiles sadly—a smile that’s too old by far for the youthful face it sits on.  
  
“Of course, I’m alone, Madam. I’ve  _always_  been alone . . . even and especially when I thought I wasn’t.” He looks away, toward the window, but not before Maethilwen sees the shine of tears on his cheeks. “At any rate, you’re right, I expect. ‘Twould be silly of me to keep a sword in my sickbed. I’d likely only behead myself in the night.”  
  
“There is that likelihood,” Maethilwen agrees, walking over to the weapons rack. Once there, she pauses, gazing at the gleaming Blood-Letter to give the boy a few moments to collect himself. “Which is why, if you like, I can move the rack closer to your bed, hmm?”  
  
And Maethilwen is carefully moving the empty—but for Blood-Letter—rack across the room, to Sildan’s bedside, when she glances over her shoulder. “If it comforts you to have Blood-Letter near, then near it shall . . . be.”  
  
Sildan’s eyes are closed and his breathing has evened out. With his face in a ray of sunshine, he looks like any elven youth on the cusp between adolescence and adulthood.  
  
 _That’s because that’s exactly what he is_ , Maethilwen thinks, smiling as she finishes moving the weapons rack closer to the bed. Till Blood-Letter, holding its place of pride in the center of the rack, is within easy grasp of Sildan’s arm’s reach.  _He has been long gone from us—all his life to the point of manhood, as mortal men reckon it—but he is home now. And we will take care of him, teach him our ways . . . in half a century, it shall be as if he’s never lived anywhere else. The loneliness that has inspired such melancholy in him shall be forgotten completely in less than half that time,_  
  
Smoothing her hand over the coverlet again, Maethilwen does something she hasn’t done in nearly eighteen years: she leans down and kisses Sildan’ forehead, closing her eyes against waves of tenderness and remembrance that threaten to swamp her under.  
  
Then she takes up her post in the chair by the window, and further keeps watch over Sildan while he slumbers.  
  


*

  
  
_Sildan is laying in the grass, under the starry sky, gazing up at the profusion of constellations and galaxies and—despite what he’d, in another life, told a woman who may or may not have been his Mum—he is_ not _alone.  
  
For he lays in strong, warm arms—arms that seek only to protect and care for him. And if he looks up (not quite as high as the sky, but getting there) he’ll see a pair of familiar silver eyes, watching him with warmth and amusement.  
  
Sildan smiles, settling back into those arms and placing his own hands on the larger ones that rest clasped together at his waist. “You’re laughing at me,” he murmurs softly, almost to himself.  
  
This is followed by a deep chuckle and those arms hold him slightly tighter, pulling him close against a strong, hard chest. “I am laughing _with _you, my pale and brilliant jewel.”  
  
“Ah, but I wasn’t laughing, was I?” Sildan banters right back, blushing, and this is good for another low chuckle.  
  
“Yes, you were. Though you remained outwardly silent, I could feel the small quiverings of your body, as it fairly shook with amusement,” that _voice _says, and Sildan sighs. Every hair on his body is standing on end and his body, itself, is starting to get some funny ideas about what it wants him to do next. None of those ideas involve talking or stargazing.  
  
“It’s not fair that you can read me so well, while _I _am able to read_ you _not at all.” Sildan pouts and turns his face up toward his as yet unglimpsed companion, and before he can get more than an impression of silver eyes, strong, sharp features, and a rather wicked smile, he’s being kissed.  
  
A brief, sweet, chaste pressing of their lips, that’s over before Sildan can do more than inhale the dizzying scent of his companion: something like green, growing things, night-blooming flowers, and musk.  
  
“No,” Sildan moans, his eyes still closed as his companion withdraws. Quite completely, actually, for he eases his stronger, larger body out from under Sildan’s, even as Sildan is still rocked to his core by his first kiss. “No, _please _. . . don’t go?”  
  
“It is best that I do, Sildan . . . though . . . I _will _return. This I promise you.” Gentle fingertips ghost across Sildan’s still-tingling lips. “ *****[O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars](http://allpoetry.com/The-Face-That-Launch%27d-A-Thousand-Ships). . . .”  
  
Sildan shivers, and just as he starts to open his eyes, his companion darts in to plant two more kisses: one on each eyelid. Immediately tears well from under Sildan’s closed lids and he chokes back a sob. For it seems it must always be this way . . . always he loves, and always he is abandoned.  
  
“ ****** And _none _but thou shalt be my paramour,” Sildan’s mysterious companion whispers from an alarming distance away—seemingly further than he could have possibly gotten in a mere few seconds. . . .  
  
“Wait—please—tell me your name, at least!” Sildan cries, reaching out . . . utterly bereft that he is about to be left alone . . . so very alone . . . once again. “Can you not stay a little while longer?”  
  
No answer, only a gentle sweeping sound, as of cloth brushing leaves of grass. And that scent of green, growing things, night-blooming flowers, and musk is all but gone—_  
  
“Wait!” Sildan opens his eyes to darkness and bolts up from a nest of pillows.  
  
His heart races and there are tears on his cheeks and he cannot for the life of him  _see_  through the murk of the place he’s in . . . except that he  _can_. The almost-light of false-dawn shines in through the window to the right of him, washing out the now-faint shine of the stars.  
  
 _Where am I?_  he wonders, one hand over his pounding, rabbiting heart. For he knows that this is not his rooms in the castle at Dale or the manor house in Laketown.  _What has happened?_  
  
It takes a few seconds of staring into the darkness before him, but he soon remembers all: Sigrid eloping; himself running away; meeting and traveling with Mr. Rolla; the ambush waiting for them less than a day’s travel from the Greenwood . . . then the long, delirious stagger from the site of the ambush, toward the Greenwood . . . then. . . .  
  
“Then, here,” Sildan murmurs to himself absently, as he also remembers the woman from the last time he’d woken up clear-headed. He’d not gotten her name, but he remembers her very clearly, for despite her youthful looks, there was something about her—an air of age and stillness—that spoke of a longer life than Sildan would ever have guessed, once upon a time. “Here, in  _Eryn Lasgalen_  . . . the Greenwood.”  
  
“Yes,” a voice says from the shadows by the window, and Sildan starts, gaping and half-frozen with fear, thoughts of ghosts running through his mind. At least until a paler shadow than the others detaches itself from the wall and steps forward, into the meager light.  
  
A tall, young elf of solid build, with long platinum hair and . . .  _stunning_  silver eyes—like stars fallen from the very sky above—emerges from the darkness, smiling kindly. He bows in that strange way elves have, one hand over his heart, the other extended in welcome. He’s wearing a grey tunic and leggings in a style that seems half-familiar to Sildan, whose heart is now skipping beats.  
  
 _It’s him!_  he thinks excitedly.  _He said he would come back and he has! He came back for me!_  
  
The remnants of his dream begin to return to him in earnest—a dream of being held in strong arms and gazing into eyes like stars fallen to Arda. Of a kiss as intense as it was gentle, and a warm, low voice promising him it would return. . . .  
  
Sildan is lost . . . utterly lost in those eyes, and he hopes to never be found. . . .”  
  
“Welcome to Eryn Lasgalen, Sildan.”  
  


TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: *Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships  
> **Christopher Marlowe, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships


End file.
